Nongoma drought relief funding investigation welcomed

NONGOMA Mayor Albert Mncwango has welcomed the announcement of an investigation into alleged corruption in the distribution of drought relief funds.

KZN MEC of Agriculture, Themba Mthembu, made the announcement earlier this week.

‘We welcome this initiative by MEC Mthembu because the Nongoma area is one of the hardest hit by the drought in which people have lost their livestock and most of the dams are dry.

‘At that time the people of Nongoma were promised that dams would be built and that they will be compensated for the loss of livestock, but none of this materialised even though huge amounts of money was set aside by the provincial government for drought relief,’ said Mncwango.

He said cattle feed arrived late and it was not enough to help all those who were affected by the drought.

The citizens were promised that fields would be fenced, but this has also not happened.

‘This makes us believes that we were being misled. We trust the investigation will uncover what happened to the funds allocated for drought relief.

‘It is unacceptable that public funds allocated for a specific purpose do not reach the people they are intended for,’ he said.

In the 2016/2017 provincial budget an amount of R200-million was allocated for drought relief. This was in addition to the R114-million prioritised during the 2015/16 adjustments by the Department of Agriculture.

Mncwango said taxpayer need to know what happened to this money.

‘Anyone found to have acted in a corrupt and unethical manner must be punished.’

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