Deputy Chair, this is a very complex situation, especially for those municipalities whose revenue base is low. They would have to access that from the equitable share or the municipal infrastructure grant, MIG, funding. That in itself has its own challenges, hon member.
I want to go back to Kuruman. I am going to Kuruman, Deputy Chair, if you could allow me to be anecdotal a bit here. There was a visit by the Deputy President and, when he came back, he instructed me to go and intervene in the situation, which I did, just like all of us do. When I got there, a water master plan was presented to me. When I wanted to know the cost that would have to be incurred in realising the objectives of the master plan, I learnt that the cost of the master plan was over R1 billion. It was definitely over R1 billion, or R1,2 billion, to turn the water situation around - somebody from Kuruman seems to be whispering. Then I asked them what their total budget was. They said that it was R25 million. Then I asked them what that was for. They said that was a MIG budget and that everything together was R25 million.
Then I asked them why this was the case. Then they said they had inherited 30 villages from the redemarcation that recently took place. Hon Faber knows about this. They inherited about 30 villages, and that responsibility was not followed by funding from the province that handed over to them. That is the first thing.
I asked them why they didn't write and explain because there is room for them to access money from the MIG, even if it doesn't constitute part of the allocation. Then they said they couldn't because the authorities at the MIG were creating a problem for them because they said the census didn't have the statistics that they were giving them and that it was only the census that could verify those statistics. So, they were at that point when I left them.
Clearly, if you are talking small municipalities, this is the problem. It is a systemic problem that we need to address. This is one of the challenges that we are dealing with under the turnaround strategy. But I do appreciate the point you raised.
But in the funding that we are trying to access, we are aiming to look at what we will refer to as hotspots. Most of the hotspots are actually the smaller municipalities. Sorry, Deputy Chair.