Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says he is confident that the extra income generated for South Africa by the recent commodities boom will help the country cope with the costs of the floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
The damage in the province is estimated at around R10 billion. The Minister was speaking from Washington where he has just arrived to attend the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
“The key activity which we did from a fiscal point of perspective is creating a fiscal space. For instance, the US has two kinds of phases: the first one is what you call an immediate relief, composed of two components. The first one is to move the data into, for instance, housing relief, water and so on. So, the second component of that is to assess the extent of the damage. We’ve got more than R1 billion which was budgeted in any event through our fiscal space. The second phase is going to be a recovery and repair and again, my view is that we’ve had better than expected revenue as a result of the commodity prices.”
Pictures of the damages caused by the floods:
The government released R1 billion in emergency funds on Friday to help tens of thousands of people left without shelter, water and power following devastating floods in the province.
Godongwana has emphasised that there is a need for government to speed up its intervention plans in the province.
More than 300 people have lost their lives:
