Cape Town - Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke will brief the ad hoc committee on floods next week on the auditing of public funds used in the flood disaster that affected KwaZulu-Natal and parts of the Eastern Cape and North West.
This was revealed by the National Assembly chair of chairs Cedric Frolick during the meeting of the programme committee.
“The ad hoc committee on floods will meet with the auditor-general next Wednesday in Pretoria, whereafter the AG will release the interim report on what she has uncovered in terms of spending on the disaster,” Frolick said.
He said the interim report will be made public.
Frolick indicated that Maluleke had provided a high-level briefing to the co-chairpersons of the ad hoc committee on Monday.
The committee, which planned to finish its work on September 9, shifted its provisional deadline to the end of the month.
“There are certain things we need to process that we became aware of in our follow-up visit,” Frolick said.
The committee is mandated to finish its work in November.
Frolick warned certain parliamentary committees that wanted to get involved with the disaster issue.
“There is a House resolution. We can’t allow parallel processes where we interact with the same stakeholders that the ad hoc committee is interacting with,” Frolick said, adding that the committee section should ensure that resolutions of Parliament were upheld.
Meanwhile, the ad hoc joint committee on flood disaster relief and recovery expressed its dissatisfaction with the progress made after its last visit in May to KwaZulu-Natal.
The committee is on a three-day visit to the province to assess the progress that has been made after the April floods.
The committee said it was not satisfied with the lack of time frames by which repairs to Valley Road and Crescent Street bridges in Port Shepstone were planned to be completed.
“It was informed that the bollards that have been installed as per its previous recommendations were only constructed five days ago. This indicates a lack of commitment on the part of the Ugu District Municipality to reconstruct the damaged infrastructure.”
The committee said it has recommended that the municipality should hold discussions with the provincial government to secure funding from the allocated disaster funds.
It also said there needed to be a clear timeline regarding the expenditure of the monies that the municipality has already received for the flood disaster.
“To prevent delays the committee recommended that the municipality should improve the capacity of its technical departments to minimise the use of external service providers for the repair work of the bridges.
“Furthermore, the committee recommended that a meeting between the municipality and the donor who offered to assist in the construction of the Valley Road Bridge should be facilitated.”
The committee plans to return to the district to assess progress made before the adoption of its final report.
The committee said it noted a glaring lack of progress on the N2 freeway in eManzimtoti due to a conflict between the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) and the business forums.
“The committee is concerned about the impact of these disagreements on the flow of traffic on the Adams Road part of the N2 freeway. Currently, there is traffic congestion of up to 8km during peak hours,” it said.
The committee welcomed the efforts by the eThekwini Metro to fix the Umlazi/Lamontville interchange using its own internal resources.
“However, the lack of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the city and the Department of Transport is delaying the process. The committee recommends that an MOU should be concluded between the two parties to allow for a speedy resolution of the matter.”
Cape Times