Minister, give Cape Town direct access to disaster funding for faster fire, flood relief
05 November 2023
STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS, COUNCILLOR CARL POPHAIM
For the City to respond more effectively to the provision of fire- and flood relief, we need to get access to funding to assist verified victims of fires with safe building kits, like we used to, within 24 to 48 hours, when we managed relief provision. The current nationally and ministerially-led process does not work for most of our fire-affected residents. I’ve formally written to the National Minister of Human Settlements to request that disaster relief funding be decentralised and transferred to clean, competent and well-governed municipalities, such as the City of Cape Town. This comes in the wake of devastating fires again this week, and our expectations for the windy and dry months ahead.
Until 2021, the City was unique among the metros in that it issued emergency fire- and flood building kits to residents when required, without first applying for official disaster funding from the Minister. This meant immediate help for fire and flood victims. This was stopped. The then approximately R35 million relief funding which we had been able to budget per year, fell away.
Annually, Cape Town typically experiences fires that could destroy approximately 6 200 structures with a cost of about R44m per year, outside of formal declared disasters.
Accessing national disaster funding is typically a lengthy process, often leaving victims without assistance for extended periods. Currently, national disaster funding for fires- and floods sits in the National Ministry. The National Department of Human Settlements centralised the Housing Grant, responding to declared disasters at its discretion. In essence, it means that for every application the City submits, a national team needs to be dispatched to Cape Town, assess and then travel back north and the City then awaits the decision. Previously, with the City’s issuing of fire kits, help could be afforded within 24- to 48 hours, depending on the intricacies of a situation.
The City’s past enhanced fire kits came with doors and windows, walls and roofs coated with fire retardant products. The City had well-oiled service providers to provide this unique emergency assistance. This also helped in making sure that at the rebuild stage, affected residents built in an orderly manner with some fire breaks and access ways, and that terribly unsafe building material was not used again to rebuild the structures.
The City’s human settlements, disaster risk, fire safety and basic services teams continue to work hard to assist fire-affected residents with soft relief (although SASSA took over a lot of the soft relief functions), verification of affected and clearing debris on site. But the issuing of emergency housing kits to affected residents in the past was a truly successful intervention by the City to help our most vulnerable residents.
With informality here to stay as residents come to Cape Town to access good services, education, health and opportunities, we want to ensure that our residents in informal settlements can still have a life of dignity and that the City is able to effectively, fast and efficiently assist our residents when their lives have been shattered and turned upside down by fires. Direct access to disaster funding for a well-run government like Cape Town is vital for emergency response and mitigation, especially if one looks at national budget cuts to housing grants amounting to more than R100 million amid a rapidly growing demand for housing and growing informality.
The City thus continues its call on National Government to look at grant funding to assist provincial governments and municipalities with this mounting task of rapid emergency assistance.
Our hands and feet have been cut off and we need to help the most vulnerable residents as fast as possible. We know how to do it and we are ready to do it. We ask for the grant funding to be made available so that we can again provide the assistance that is required in the context that we are operating in. We know our situation on the ground better than other authorities and we are absolutely committed to our residents.
In older, long-existing City-electricity supplied areas, informal settlements, where it has been possible to do so, almost 100% of the settlements are electrified. Due to the growth of informality over the past decade, budget requirements have increased severely as incidents requiring fire and flood response have shot up. Most of the newly formed settlements over the past three years have been formed in areas not ideal for human habitation, and are prone to fires and floods due to the terrain and also the density of settlements. The unlawful occupations have also occurred in areas where there are no bulk services, or where none have ever been planned as the areas occupied are wetlands, nature reserves, dunes and water bodies. We need to meet our residents where they are, and ensure that we can cater to their needs for greater safety, health and access to basic services where feasible.
Over the past financial year, the City’s Human Settlements Directorate spent 99,3% of its more than R880 million capital budget in the 2022/23 financial year. This is money being spent on directly improving the living conditions of vulnerable households and providing and enabling decent accommodation. Some R2,5 billion capital budget has been allocated for human settlements projects over the next three years.
We look forward to working together with all stakeholders to enhance our emergency response in a feasible manner especially as we head into the high wind and dry season.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
