On 15 March 2020, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs declared a national state of disaster in terms of the Disaster Management Act, No. 57 of 2002. This ran parallel with another disaster – on 4 March 2020 the ongoing drought was declared a national disaster (the last time drought was declared a national disaster was on 13 March 2018). These declarations led to promises of emergency funding from government, but the Covid-19 response has meant that drought relief has been deprioritised to some extent.
On 5 June 2020, the Minister of Finance called for the release of unallocated disaster relief funds, and Agri South Africa (Agri SA) called on government to provide financial assistance to farmers affected by the drought. By early July, only 175 farmers in the Northern Cape had received a grant, with about 4 000 still waiting, as a squabble over paperwork hampered relief. Since 2015, Agri SA and its members have relied on private-sector donations to assist farming communities, particularly as some drought relief funds have gone missing – in 2018 the Beyers Naudé Municipality in Graaff-Reinet misappropriated R25 million of the R30 million made available to deal with the drought.
The 2020 Budget Review had made provision for R438 million in provincial disaster relief and R1.1 billion in municipal disaster relief over three years. However, on 21 April, government announced that it would provide a further R500 billion in Covid-19 relief funding– the largest once-off stimulus package in South African history (equivalent to about 10% of GDP). The stimulus package includes interventions by the Reserve Bank, with a repo rate cut of 250 basis points this year. Of the budget, R130 billion would be reprioritised and the rest would be raised from among others the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which agreed to provide $4.3 billion in July, the BRICS New Development Bank, and the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
Government allocated R145 billion for the immediate protection of lives and the support of livelihoods. A R200 billion loan guarantee scheme was rolled out to support short-term economic activity (although Intellidex said only 1% of the fund had been used by mid-June), while R70 billion was set aside for tax relief measures (cash flow relief or direct payments to individuals and businesses). A further R20 billion was allocated to the healthcare response, with R20 billion going towards alleviating hunger and social distress. A further R20 billion was set aside for municipalities for emergency water supplies, public transport, food, and shelter for homeless people. Worryingly, tender fraud has been rampant. In September, former Auditor-General, the late Kimi Makwetu, released a report on government’s Covid-19 relief fund spending, revealing that there were clear indications of fraud in the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE). Contracts in the R22.4 billion PPE budget were misappropriated.
With unemployment reaching 30.1% in the first three months of the year, and 30.8% in the third quarter, and with the economy predicted by the IMF to contract by 7.2% in 2020, the twin disasters of Covid-19 and the drought will continue to affect us for a long time to come. As a signatory to the globally recognised Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, South Africa is committed to strengthening disaster response systems and improving service delivery. However, progress is likely to be slow as we will be forced to re-engineer our disaster readiness during and after the pandemic, and should consider the long-term capacitation of organisations on the frontlines of disaster response.
