Pretoria: With the Southern African region increasingly experiencing climate-related disasters, the South African government has announced a pivotal shift in its disaster management approach, focusing on proactive planning rather than reactive measures. Deputy Minister of Finance, Ashor Sarupen, emphasized the urgency of this strategy in Parliament, highlighting the unsustainable nature of reallocating funds from crucial development projects to disaster response.
According to South African Government News Agency, the government is set to finalize and publish a National Disaster Risk Financing Strategy by the 2025/26 financial year. This strategy aims to introduce disaster risk financing instruments, such as climate insurance products, to enhance funding predictability and response times. It will also integrate disaster risk management within grant frameworks for infrastructure and local government, while aiding departments and municipalities in incorporating climate risk into financial planning.
The Deputy Minister underscored the immediate threat of climate change, stressing that budget frameworks must reflect this present reality. In line with broader economic reforms, public infrastructure spending is projected to surpass R1 trillion over three years, aimed at mitigating economic constraints and enhancing social services.
The reconfiguration of the Budget Facility for Infrastructure seeks to attract private sector participation through diverse financing instruments and simplified public-private partnership (PPP) regulations, effective from June 2025. The establishment of a National Treasury-overseen structure will further streamline private sector engagement and project preparation.
In response to municipal challenges, National Treasury is implementing targeted support and financial reforms to rectify service delivery issues, fiscal mismanagement, and governance failures. This includes enforcing funded budget adoption, revenue value chain reforms, capacity building for financial management, tailored financial recovery plans, and the implementation of the Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA) for financial transparency.
Efforts to reform the auditing profession are also underway, with a review of the Auditing Profession Act to enhance the regulation and conduct of registered auditors, following significant audit failures in recent years.