Johannesburg: The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Velenkosini Hlabisa, will officially announce the disbursement of the Municipal Disaster Response Grant and the Disaster Recovery Grant to provinces and municipalities throughout the country on Monday, 7 July 2025. These allocations are intended to bolster immediate relief and recovery measures in communities affected by recent disasters.
According to South African Government News Agency, the department has announced that this intervention comes in response to a series of destructive incidents that have been officially recognised and declared as national disasters, in accordance with Section 23(3) of the Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act No. 57 of 2002). Funding for this initiative is being released under Section 25(3)(a) of the Division of Revenue Act, 2023 (Act No. 5 of 2023), as amended by the Division of Revenue Amendment Act, 2023 (Act No. 24 of 2023).
The announcement forms part of government’s ongoing efforts to ensure an adequate and timely response to the weather events of April 2025, which affected several provinces, notably the Eastern Cape. In addition to addressing the damage caused by these events, the grants will support broader recovery interventions aimed at restoring essential services and the dignity of affected communities, the department said.
The Eastern Cape has been declared a national disaster zone due to the widespread destruction caused by recent severe floods that claimed about 102 lives last month. Last week, the Eastern Cape CoGTA MEC, Zolile Williams, stated that the declaration was made under the Disaster Management Act (Act No. 57 of 2002).
To ensure the integrity and effectiveness of this funding, the national department said strict accountability mechanisms will be implemented to guarantee that the allocated resources are used solely for their intended purposes. Monitoring and reporting frameworks will be enforced in collaboration with relevant stakeholders to uphold transparency and good governance.
This intervention reflects government’s commitment to moving from policy deliberation to decisive action and to building a resilient, responsive, and inclusive system of local governance that places the needs of communities at the centre of development, CoGTA said.