Government is exploring options for purchasing insurance for certain climate-related disaster events, where such a practice would not undermine budget sustainability.
Tabling the 2024 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in Parliament, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said climate-related disasters have intensified, damaging infrastructure and disrupting life.
“The increasing frequency and intensity of climate disasters is costly, and we must proactively work to reduce their impact on the fiscus and on society,” the Minister said on Wednesday.
National Treasury’s document on the 2024 MTBPS indicated that methods previously developed by the public and private sectors to manage disaster response and recovery are becoming unrealistic in terms of their costs.
“National Treasury is undertaking a detailed analysis of the experience of local governments regarding their access to emergency financing and their ability to disburse it.
“This analysis will help us better understand their capacity to manage a multi-layered, disaster risk finance approach.
“It will look into the willingness of municipalities to independently manage their financial response to disasters, existing incentives to invest in readiness, and their ability to set aside sufficient funds for their response,” the Minister said.
He said the recommendations of the disaster risk financing strategy will be implemented from 2025 to improve readiness and response time.
Rebuilding and rehabilitation of infrastructure damaged by floods
The 2024 Adjustments Budget includes unforeseeable and unavoidable adjustments dedicated to support the rebuilding and rehabilitation of infrastructure damaged by floods across multiple municipalities and provinces.
“Provincial allocations include an additional R948 million for infrastructure reconstruction in the Western Cape due to flood damage, with funds allocated to the provincial roads’ maintenance grant, the health facility revitalisation grant, the comprehensive agricultural support programme grant and the education infrastructure grant.
“Additionally, R35.7 million is rolled over for the school infrastructure backlogs grant in the Eastern Cape, and R251 million is added in the education infrastructure grant for the Western Cape Rapid School Build Programme through the Budget Facility for Infrastructure,” National Treasury said.
Local government allocations include R684 million for the municipal disaster recovery grant to repair flood-damaged infrastructure across several provinces, with specific amounts allocated to Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga municipalities. – SAnews.gov.za
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So I\’m real good friends with this guy named Juan Ted. Now, Juan is a pretty unbelievable guy. He can steal ANYTHING he wants to. Literally anything. It could be the shirt off your back, the wallet in your pocket, or I\’m even sure he\’d find a way to steal your house (And your spouse too). So anyway, one day Juan and I are sitting around watching TV, and they announced that the hope diamond will not be on display anymore and is now getting moved to an undisclosed location. So as we hear this, Juan says \”I\’m gonna steal it\”. Now I know how good Juan is at this kind of stuff, so I just tell him good luck and he goes on his way. Eventually he narrows his search down to a small cave in South Africa. When Juan gets there, he doesn\’t see any guards or anything outside the cave, so he just walks in assuming he was wrong about where the diamond was. He wanders around for a while until he sees a long lit hallway with the hope diamond at the end of it. Confident in his abilities, he strolls over to the diamond and picks it up before realizing its a trap! Suddenly, red lights flashed, armed men came running out, sirens went off. You could hear one of the men say under his breath \”We finally caught Juan Ted.\” But Juan, being the best thief in the world, said \”Not quite. On the count of three, I will disappear.\” As the men looked around confused, Juan began to count. \”Uno. Dos.\” And he disappeared without a tres.