Chairperson, hon Minster, under Programme No 3, Agricultural Support Services, a provision was made for an agricultural disaster management grant of R156,9 million to provide for disaster management in all nine provinces. In the Government Gazette of 8 September 2009, a declaration of the provincial state of drought disaster in the Eastern Cape province, six district municipalities were declared as disaster areas. The assessment report estimated a damage of R1,184 billion.
This is only one of a number of drought disaster areas with a possible total damage, much higher than this figure. How does the Minister plan to assist communities who suffered losses or are in need of water with financial support, in the view of the limited budget provided in this programme, and at what timeframes? I thank you.
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Chairperson and hon member, the state cannot be an insurance policy broker for farmers. The state cannot substitute insurances for farmers. Our first prerogative is to get farmers to take out insurance policies so that they cannot be totally dependent on the state disaster management.
Where disaster does occur, it is not incumbent on the state to recoup farmers' losses. Ours is not to balance out the losses. In any business you will have losses and you must ensure that you actually make provision for them. As in the past, you cannot be totally dependent on the state to pay for all your losses, particularly when it comes to disasters.
With disaster management, we only refund farmers on production costs and infrastructure costs on farm settlement disaster management. When it comes to all farm disaster management, for example, roads and other infrastructure projects, we are dependent on the other line function departments, like the Department of Transport and the Department of Human Settlements to assist in other areas should there there be disasters.
Our intention is not for agriculture to cover the entire disaster, but only some areas. I thank you. [Applause.]