Question NW3646 to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

Reply:

1. (a) The department (COGTA) has initiated fire services capacity assessments which is updated on annual basis with all the Provincial Disaster Management Centres across the Country. (i) The current rescue capacity in the Country is as follows:

Provinces	Number of Firefighters	Number of Fire Appliances (Rescue Vehicles and Fire engines
Western Cape	1 452	657
Free State	481	41
Gauteng	3 538	204
Eastern Cape	938	114
KwaZulu-Natal	1 125	145
North West	650	83
Limpopo	482	86
Mpumalanga	478	69
Northern Cape	88	32

(ii) The NDMC has noted that the provinces i.e. Free State, Northern Cape, and Mpumalanga are without dedicated Fire focal persons in fulltime capacity for the coordination of Fire Services functions. This is recorded as a shortcoming to carry out fire services functions in the above-mentioned Provinces as per proclamation R153 of the Constitution of South Africa.

(b) The department (COGTA) do not maintain dedicated annual deployment budgets set aside for (i) international and/or cross border rescues, but where funds may be required for deployment, such funds may be allocated through reallocation of the unused operational budget of the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC). (ii) local rescue as such responsibility in terms of Schedule 4, Part B of the South African Constitution Fire Services is the responsibility of local government with national and provincial oversight. The Fire Brigade Services Act, 1987 (Act no. 99 of 1987) (FBSA) is the primary piece of legislation regulating fire services and provides for the establishment, maintenance, employment, co-ordination and standardisation of fire brigade services. (iii) The Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) do not maintain a dedicated budget for maritime rescue as these functions are administered through the Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC) and the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) operated and maintained in terms of the South African Maritime and Aeronautical search and Rescue Act, 2002 administered by the National Department of Transport. The annual budget allocated by ATNS to resource ARCC is approximately R8,1 million rand annually for Human Resources and R500 000 annually for travel.

(2) (a) Total number of credited swift water technicians in each province

Eastern Cape	10
Free State	27
North West	23
Gauteng	197
Western Cape	69
Limpopo	0
Mpumalanga	37
Northern Cape	Did not submit
KwaZulu-Natal	205

(b) The department (COGTA) do not maintain any details of the level of accredited qualifications, this information is at various institutions of higher learning.

End.