The budget vote for the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning as well as biodiversity entity CapeNature was delivered in the legislature today.
The Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell, lauded the two departments and CapeNature for their clean audits and hard work in the past year.
The ongoing drought has put the spotlight on the important issue of water security and has led to water being identified as a provincial risk. In this regard, the phased development and implementation of River Improvement Plans has been identified as a continued priority, building on the successes of the Berg River Improvement Plan. This work in essence aims to improve water quantity and quality in the Berg River through implementing river rehabilitation in the catchment areas.
“We estimate that alien vegetation clearing in the catchments in the upper Berg River, currently releases up to 26.5 million cubic meters of additional water per year into the Western Cape river system. The value of this water as domestic untreated water at an entry level tariff is nearly R 240 million per year. A section of the Breede River has now also been identified for rehabilitation,” says Bredell.
The Breede River project is being developed in-house this year in collaboration with key stakeholders and implementation will commence in 2017/18.
The minister’s budget also highlighted the following:
- The department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning gets an amount of R591 million (2016: R550 million) for the 2016/2017 financial year of which R287 million gets allocated to CapeNature.
- The ongoing implementation of the Western Cape Government’s Regional Socio-Economic Projects (RSEP) and the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) Programme. The main goal of the Programme is to partner with active citizens to plan and implement upgrading and safety projects in poor neighbourhoods. R38 million has been allocated for the Program this year.