{"id":863894,"date":"2026-06-21T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=863894"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T13:31:08","slug":"south-africas-r14-7-billion-disaster-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/863894\/south-africas-r14-7-billion-disaster-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s R14.7 billion disaster bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s national government has spent close to R15 billion on disaster response over the last decade, with the landscape changing due to global warming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to questions from Rise Mzansi’s Makashule Gana, the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Velenkosini Hlabisa, highlighted a rise in disaster declarations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister said that South Africa has seen a rise in natural hazards at the local, provincial, and national levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included droughts between 2015 and 2018, floods and severe weather events, fires, and other events that required coordinated responses across government spheres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister said that there has been a notable shift recently towards large-scale, multi-provincial
disasters that require coordinated national responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to funding, roughly R14.7 billion has been allocated over the last 10 years via national disaster response and recovery grant mechanisms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department observed several key trends in disaster occurrences over the last decade, including a transition from mainly drought-related disasters to increasingly frequent floods and severe weather events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has also been an increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters, consistent with climate-related risks, and a shift from localised incidents to multi-provincial events that require national coordination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister said that these trends have informed improvements in disaster preparedness, such as strengthened intergovernmental coordination mechanisms and ongoing revenue management systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department has also worked to improve preparedness by refining disaster management plans at the district and metropolitan levels, developing contingency plans, and strengthening early warning systems. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Rise Mzanzi MP, Makashule Gana<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Gana said that the response from the Minister highlights the escalating economic and human cost of natural disasters hitting South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the national government has allocated around R14.7 billion over the last decade through disaster response grants, this excludes provincial and municipal governments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gana said that extensive funds have been spent by provincial and municipal governments from their own depleted budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This massive expenditure underscores an undeniable reality: climate change is an active economic and social emergency,” said Gana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Over the last decade, South Africa has shifted from localised droughts to high-frequency, multi-provincial flooding and cyclones that destroy infrastructure, threaten food security, and claim innocent lives.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that CoGTA does not maintain a consolidated dataset of disaster-related allocations made by provincial and municipal governments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without centralised oversight of the spending, Gana said that South Africa cannot effectively coordinate relief, plan ahead, or measure the true fiscal impact of climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Emergency procurement environments notoriously attract unscrupulous suppliers who inflate prices to profit off public tragedies,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rise Mzansi has thus called on the minister to centralise disaster data via a partnership with the National Treasury. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would log every cent spent on disaster response across the three spheres of government and ensure better strategic coordination, Rise claimed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also called for the establishment of a pre-vetted supplier database, coordinating with provinces and municipalities to build a transparent database of approved vendors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rise believes this would ensure a rapid response while preventing price gouging. It also called for plans to accelerate adaptation and oversight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would prioritise resilient infrastructure and early-warning systems and provide regular briefings to Parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa has spent billions on disaster management over the last decade, with global warning leading to an increase in climate-related risks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":858530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10395,19491],"class_list":["post-863894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cogta","tag-rise-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863921,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863894\/revisions\/863921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}