SA ocean monitoring project ‘fairly confident’ of budget boost

The head of a South African project that aims to make the country’s seas safer, cleaner and more profitable has expressed confidence that it will get a renewed funding commitment from the Treasury next year.

The country’s Oceans and Coastal Information Management System is in the fourth year of its five-year development phase. Last month, the project’s leaders handed in a funding request to the Treasury for the next five years.

OCIMS’ current yearly budget is about R15-17 million (US$1.08-1.22m), Ashley Naidoo, the programme’s director, told Research Africa at a stakeholders workshop in Cape Town on 6 November.