President Cyril Ramaphosa said the Covid-19 pandemic has provided enough lessons to the new taskforce government has set up to ensure funds made available to rebuild KwaZulu-Natal province following last week’s flooding are not abused.
Speaking when he announced a national state of disaster on Monday night, Ramaphosa warned “corruption hyenas” against salivating over the prospect of public funds being disbursed to rebuild KwaZulu-Natal after the devastating floods in the province, saying they would “not smell a cent of it.”
“Learning from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are drawing together stakeholders to be part of an oversight structure to ensure that all funds disbursed to this disaster are properly accounted for and that the state receives value for money,” Ramaphosa said.
He added: “These stakeholders include the office of the auditor-general, business representatives, religious sector, labour, community-based organisations and professional bodies such as engineers and accountants.”
With initial emergency funds of US$70 million announced last week, Ramaphosa said the Solidarity Fund – originally set up to assist during the Covid-19 pandemic – would be added to the rebuilding task to help the province return to normalcy.
He warned corrupt businesspersons in the country that “there can be no room for corruption — and there can be no room for mismanagement or fraud of any sort” during the rebuilding process.
Billions of dollars are expected to be spent on the rebuilding of KwaZulu-Natal province and its main financial hub of the Indian Ocean port of Durban which is the main economic gateway for external trade for southern Africa.
NM/jn/APA