eThekwini municipality | Metro responds to National Treasury

ETHEKWINI - The eThekwini Municipality says they are shocked by the National Treasury's decision to cut their Urban Settlement Development Grant.

This comes after the department asked the metro to explain why their grant shouldn't be cut.

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The municipality says they have spent all the allocated funds in the past five years, adding that the budget cut will affect the city's plans for repairing infrastructure damaged by the 2021 April floods.

City manager Musa Mbhele said, "this has come as shock as we are still reeling from the April 2021 floods, we thought that this money was going to help us deal with the backlog that were exacerbated by the floods."

"While still on this point, I must say that these departments are not only cutting from eThekwini Municipality but it is cutting from other municipalities in the country where they suspect that there might be low expenditure."

"So it's not only in the city of eThekwini but we thought since we just came out of the worst floods our case was going be treated differently, we are really shocked that they've cut by so much."