In the 2017/2018 financial year, the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agency (MISA) noted that its task of assisting municipalities was becoming more remote. The constraint in this regard is the inadequate internal capacity relating to the provisioning of qualified technical professionals as well as their redeployment.
The agency identified 27 district municipalities who were experiencing pressure due to lack of these professionals. The agency faced also certain institutional challenges. However, despite these challenges around the system of training and developing technical shifts, MISA continued to address backlogs in the 27 prioritised district municipalities. Currently, MISA is deploying 100 artisans and water process controllers to struggling municipalities. It provides infrastructure planning, operations, and delivery, as well as assisting with infrastructure management.
However, MISA’s ambitious programme is not likely to be achieved as the agency’s current budget decreases by 15%. The bulk of the budget reduction relates to sub-programme 2: Technical Services, which is pivotal to MISA’s mandate. The funds allocated to this programme cover the costs of remunerating technical professionals rendering technical to municipalities. Less budget for MISA means less support for municipalities.
The Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities of South Africa receives a budget allocation of R43 million from the department with an increase of 0.5% compared to the previous financial year. Based on the budget the Commission set out to act on the following activities:
- conducting 18 Capacity Building workshops;
- 12 Nation Building dialogues; and
- 18 Awareness Campaigns as a way of engagement with communities on cultural matters.
Beyond this, the Commission may be compelled to update Parliament regarding measures it intends undertaking to comply with Section 24 (9) of the CRL Rights Act, which states that the Commission must convene two consultative conferences during every term of the Commission. This may prove difficult in light of the budget cuts. We urge the Commission to seek sponsors for these events, as provided for in the legislation.
The 2018/2019 allocation to the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) is aimed at promoting, integrating and co-ordinating a system of disaster prevention, and mitigating and managing risk. The NDMC budget increased by 2.4% or R13.3m in real terms. However, I must state also that the bulk of this budget is concentrated on Sub-Programme 7, the Disaster Relief Grant.
The Disaster Relief Grant receives an additional R24.5m in real terms for the 2018/19 financial year in recognition of the fact that disaster in South Africa, and drought inparticular, show no signs of abatement in provinces such as the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape. We do not believe that this is an adequate funding provision and call for more to be done to ensure that disasters are responded to quicker, and that more funds are made available to disaster-affected areas. Chairperson, it is our belief that all the entities of this department, with the exception of SALGA, are chronically underfunded. We call on the Minister to address this as a matter of urgency in his adjustment budget.