Day: February 29, 2024

KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, says despite various challenges, including floods that hit the province, the provincial economy is back on its feet.

The province is gradually addressing the damage which is estimated in the region of R33 billion.

‘At times, we felt we were on the verge of collapse while at other times we felt we could touch the sky. The circumstances around the sixth administration tested our steely resolve and we chose to soldier on,’ Dube-Ncube said as she delivered the State of the Province Address (SOPA) at the Oval Cricket Stadium in Pietermaritzburg.

The Premier said following the destructive floods in April 2022 and the July 2021 civil unrest, government implemented a package of recovery programmes to rebuild a number of infrastructure, including shopping malls and factories, which were torched or looted.

She said the South African Special Risk Insurance Association (SASRIA) has spent over R20 billion rebuilding shopping malls and businesses affected by the social unrest,
with more than R2 billion spent on rebuilding economic infrastructure damaged by the floods, resulting in over 192 000 jobs being saved.

‘The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) relief measures implemented through the National Empowerment Fund (NEF) and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) Critical Infrastructure Reconstruction Programme, saw a total of 118 applications from affected businesses approved with a value of R1.9 billion.

‘The IDC further partnered with the province in allocating R30 million support to SMMEs [Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise], township and rural businesses affected by the civil unrest. IDC allocated R10 million to support the informal businesses that were impacted by the floods of 2022,’ Dube-Ncube said on Wednesday.

Furthermore, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development Tourism and Environmental Affairs allocated R67 million towards flood relief for businesses affected by the 2022 and 2023 floods.

The Premier also acknowledged President Cy
ril Ramaphosa for visiting Richards Bay in November 2023. The President visited the Port of Richards Bay to assess the state of the port and efforts underway to address congestion.

Following the President’s oversight visit to the port, Dube-Ncube said the province has witnessed a significant decrease in road truck traffic leading to the Port of Richards Bay as congestion decreased.

The Premier attributed this to a collective achievement to the introduction of the Truck Management Strategy, championed by the Ports Authority.

‘At the Port of Durban, after having received word on the introduction of the container surcharge by shipping lines because of the container backlog in our ports, we are delighted to report that the number of vessels at anchorage has reduced from more than 60 ships in mid-November, to just 12 ships at the end of January 2024.

‘We recognise, with appreciation to the role played by the industry, as well as local businesses in ensuring our ports are held accountable and deliver on their i
ntended mandate of facilitating international trade.’

Dube-Ncube also highlighted that the provincial government is strengthening its support for businesses, by ensuring that enterprises doing business with government are paid on time.

She said a province-wide programme, Operation Pay on Time, assists with resolving payment queries from suppliers that do business with government.

‘From April 2023 alone, the total number of cases and queries received is 288. Of this number 216 were resolved with a value of R281 million paid to suppliers,’ she said.

Source: South African Government News Agency

KwaZulu-Natal has made strides in the delivery of housing units, with a total of 690 000 housing units having been built since the dawn of democracy in 1994.

This is among the province’s achievements highlighted by Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube, delivering the State of the Province Address on Wednesday.

‘We have built 690 000 housing units in KwaZulu-Natal, which means more than 2.8 million KZN citizens live in houses built by this democratic government. This excludes the 130 000 sites that have been made available over the same 30-year period,’ Dube-Ncube said.

Reflecting on the strides made towards the provision of decent housing and housing opportunities, Dube-Ncube said a total of 52 974 fully subsidised houses were built for qualifying destitute families in various parts of the province, with 36 400 of the housing units replacing mud houses.

Dube-Ncube also noted the breakthroughs made in the delivery of houses for military veterans, as well as 16 973 serviced sites that were made available to people who
could afford to build their own top structures.

She said the 19 social housing projects have delivered 2 532 rented units, targeting people that can afford to pay rent in the social housing schemes.

This is in addition to 1 116 rental units that were delivered in community residential units (CRU).

The 22 priority development areas were declared to support targeted areas, including KwaDukuza Town/Hyde Park-Nonoti Area, Empangeni, Richards Bay, eSikhaleni Vulindlela Corridor, Msunduzi North and East Development Areas, uMlazi/Austerville, Ladysmith Development Area and Newcastle, among others.

‘In order to address the upgrading of informal settlements and farm workers’ challenges, vast land parcels have been acquired in areas, including 51 6817 hectares in Emadlangeni; 132 6170 hectares in Newcastle (Farm Boschhoek); 57 2682 hectares in Abaqulusi, and 86 5623 hectares in lnkosi Langalibalele, among others,’ the Premier said.

Dube-Ncube also announced that the rented buildings, known as Transitional Emergenc
y Accommodations (TEAs), have been closed in all other municipalities, except eThekwini Metro.

During the 2023 SOPA, Dube-Ncube reported that all 135 halls (Mass Care Centres) were closed prior to the deadline of 2022 Christmas eve.

The Premier reported that the so called “Truro Hall Northdale Flood Victims” are now happily integrating with the community of Copesville where their permanent homes are being provided.

‘Through subsidised housing, our cities are slowly being transformed while we are addressing the formation of informal settlements and providing housing for our military veterans. One of these projects is the Vulindlela Rural Housing Project, at R2.4 billion, which has created over 1 832 jobs,’ Dube-Ncube said.

Households vulnerable to hunger drop to 12%

Noting another milestone since the advent of democracy, Dube-Ncube said the number of households in the province that are vulnerable to hunger has decreased to 12%.

‘A total of 50% of the province’s households were vulnerable to hunger in 200
4, but this figure dropped to 12% in 2022. Since 2019, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development supported 17 266 smallholder producers and through the Multi-Planting Season programme, 150 000 hectares were planted for food production across the province to support food production.

‘Through the One Home One Garden, Seed and Seedlings Multiplication Programme, and other food security interventions, the department supported 128 205 food insecure households from 2019 to date, and supported a total of 79 142 subsistence producers,’ Dube-Ncube said.

The Premier said she has tasked the Agriculture and Rural Development MEC to set up a special purpose vehicle, and transfer the Agri-Hubs and Commercial Mechanisation Programme to speed up implementation.

‘This special purpose vehicle will attract investment, increase production, and create domestic and export markets for our farmers and be self-funding.’

Source: South African Government News Agency

National Treasury has noted that whilst South Africa is on track to address all the outstanding action items by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) with regards to the country’s grey listing, it remains a challenge to address all 17 of the remaining action items by February 2025.

‘All relevant agencies and authorities will need to continue to demonstrate significant improvements, and also for such improvements are being sustained,’ National Treasury said on Thursday.

The FATF is the international standard-setting body that oversees global compliance with anti-money laundering rules.

‘The February 2024 FATF Plenary adopted a report by the Joint Group, confirming that five of the 22 action items are now addressed or largely addressed. These relate to the legal provisions criminalizing terrorist financing and underpinning South Africa’s targeted financial sanction regimes related to terrorism financing and proliferation financing, increasing the use of financial intelligence from the Financial Intelligenc
e Centre to support money laundering investigations, and increasing the resources of AML/CFT [Anti-Money Laundering and the Combating of the Financing of Terrorism] supervisors,’ National Treasury said.

The FATF grey listed South Africa at its February 2023 Plenary meetings where a jointly agreed Action Plan was adopted listing 22 action items linked to the strategic deficiencies identified in the AML/CFT regime.

The FATF grey list refers to the FATF’s practice of publicly identifying countries with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies. The FATF maintains two such lists with one being jurisdictions under ‘increased monitoring’ that are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes’ and secondly ‘high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action’ that are not actively engaging with the FATF to address these deficiencies.

South Africa is required to address all 22 to exit the FATF grey list.

‘The deadlines for addressing the action items fall between January 2024 to January
2025. Should South Africa be assessed to have largely addressed all 22 Action Items in February 2025, the FATF will schedule an onsite visit in April/May 2025, to confirm that assessment and make a recommendation to the June 2025 FATF plenary.

‘In this cycle of reporting, the FATF also considered that two further action items that were previously not addressed, have now been partly addressed, confirming that 14 of the 17 outstanding action items have now been partly addressed.

‘Three action items still have not been addressed as yet. The deadline for South Africa to address (or at least largely address) four of the outstanding action items in the Action Plan, is May 2024,’ National Treasury said.

The FATF will consider South Africa’s progress on these action items at its plenary meeting in June 2024. A further eight action items are due in September 2024, and the final five items are due in January 2025.

The process in addressing effectiveness deficiencies is distinct from the process in addressing techni
cal compliance deficiencies (related to the adequacy of the country’s AML/CFT laws and policy frameworks).

‘The October 2023 FATF plenary formally re-rated 18 of South Africa’s 20 deficiencies, based on the progress made by the South African authorities in the two-year period following the 2021 mutual evaluation. Of these, 15 were upgraded to a point where they are no longer deficient, as 14 Recommendations are now fully or largely compliant, and one Recommendation was deemed to be inapplicable to South Africa.

‘Following these re-ratings, South Africa is now deemed to be fully or largely compliant in 35 of the 40 FATF Recommendations, including in five of the six core FATF Recommendations. South Africa will apply for further re-ratings of technical compliance deficiencies, for the consideration of the October 2024 FATF Plenary,’ National Treasury said.

Source: South African Government News Agency