Cape Town - FINANCE Minister Tito Mboweni has allocated R466 million in disaster relief to provinces in order to respond to financial pressures brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This emerged in a notice published in the government gazette by National Treasury last Friday.
In the notice, Mboweni said the allocation was made possible after the conversion of funds from the Municipal Disaster Relief Grant to the Provincial Disaster Relief Grant.
"This gazette is published in terms of the Division of Revenue Act and provides information on adjustment to existing applications to national departments and provinces in the 2019-20 financial year.
"It therefore updates information that was published in the Division of Revenue Act," he said.
Mboweni said the Department of Cooperative Governance converted all funds in the Municipal Disaster Relief Grant to the Provincial Disaster Relief Grant.
The breakdown of the allocations show that Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal would receive the lion's share with each to be allocated R116m and R138.9m respectively.
The Western Cape was allocated R53.3m, Eastern Cape R44.6m, Limpopo R42m, Mpumalanga R34m, North West R18.5m, Free State R12.4m and Northern Cape R6.2m.
The allocations came days after the Ekurhuleni Metro told the co-operative governance and traditional affairs portfolio committee it had made an application for R32.7m from the disaster management relief fund in April and a response was still being awaited.
Mayor Mzwandile Masina was convinced that the disaster management relief fund would ease some pressure from revenue collection decline.
The city is projecting R1.2 billion in revenue collection decline due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Masina had said the city had shelved the customer relief proposals after it was told at a meeting with Cogta Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma not to introduce them.
The disaster relief allocation to provinces also comes against the backdrop of the provinces awaiting for the National Treasury to make allocations in connection with R20 billion to be made to municipalities.
Mboweni is expected to table the special adjustment budget in Parliament from June 24.