a). Additional Funding
There is no additional funding for either the Province or the Metro of Human settlements grants provided in the current financial year.
b). Reprioritization
An amount of R340.3 million was reprioritised under Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) and R124.4 million under Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership Grant (ISUPG). These reprioritised funds, as part of the 2022/23 annual allocations, have already been transferred to eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality for the reprioritization for the flooding disaster relief purposes. It should be noted that the above-stated funds are not additional funds but are part of the allocated 2022/23 financial year.
(2) What are the details of the impact of the above-mentioned local, provincial or national reprioritisation of any Human Settlements grants on the provision of housing and basic services in the (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23 financial years? NW3097E
a) 2021-22 financial year
There were no declared disasters that necessitated the reprioritisation measure during the 2021/22 financial year. The Provinces and Metropolitan Municipalities were able to continue with the normal operational tasks as expected of them without any impact on the annual budgets allocated to the Province.
b) 2022-23 financial year
(i) KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Department of Human Settlements
The natural disasters that occurred recently implied that the National Department had to approve the entire annual allocation of Provincial Emergency Housing Grant (PEHG) amounting to R326 million to assist the reported disaster of KwaZulu-Natal Province and therefore had no funds afterwards to assist any other Province with similar funding needs.
In the case of KwaZulu-Natal Province, an amount of R515 million (HSDG-R326 million and ISUPG – R189 million) was reprioritised by the Province to address the disaster and after the PEHG was approved, the Province decided to utilise the R326 million from PEHG and reverse the same amount which was reprioritised to address the disaster back to the HSDG. This implied that the Province still has the full annual allocation of HSDG of R2.9 billion to address human settlements needs for the 2022/23 financial year
(ii) eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality
The Metro reprioritised funds allocated under Urban Settlements Development Grant amounting to R340.3 million to cater for the following projects:
Under the Informal Settlement Upgrading Partnership Grant, the Metro reprioritised an amount of R124.4 million to cater for: