City seeks National Treasury approval for informal settlement funds

09 June 2023

The City of Cape Town has approached National Treasury to approve the use of informal settlement grant funding received unexpectedly from the National Human Settlements Department on the eve of financial year-end. For these funds to be used in the new financial year 2023/24, Treasury approval is needed.

Of the R111m in funding received, the City is proposing to allocate R61m to informal settlement upgrading projects.

These are pipeline projects that are advanced sufficiently within City internal planning processes so that their implementation dates can be brought forward given the unexpected funding.

The City is proposing these projects due to their state of readiness and because funds are already allocated to the 16 informal settlement projects originally suggested by the National Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi.

The remaining R50m will be returned to National Treasury given the request from Minister Kubayi for part of the funding to be allocated to the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa's (Prasa) central line relocations.

Should Treasury support the Minister's proposal, National Government will reallocate the R50m to the Housing Development Agency (HDA), which is the implementing agent for Prasa's central line relocations project.

The HDA is currently busy with land acquisition processes following Prasa obtaining an eviction order for the central line, which includes the relocation of unlawful occupants to emergency housing.

The City is the independent planning authority that will need to administer HDA's development application for these relocations once received as per the Municipal Planning By-Law.

Overall, the City spent 99% of its R512m informal settlement grant funding for 2021/22, with a projected 99% spend of the R554m grant funding in 22/23.

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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office