Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, says her department is looking for suitable land for flood-affected families of KwaZulu-Natal to return to.
Her department briefed Parliament’s Joint Ad Hoc Committee on Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery on Monday about the government’s interventions in provinces recently affected by flooding.
The province is still reeling from last month’s devastating floods and again experienced flooding this weekend.
Dlamini-Zuma says the aim is to find alternative land for those who live in vulnerable areas where mudslides are likely to occur.
“We are working with public works, looking for land suitable for residential areas so those pieces of land used to build so people don’t go back to those planes.”
In the video below, residents displaced by recent floods express their hopes and fears:
Contingency reserve funds with government
Meanwhile, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele has assured members of Parliament that government has the R1-billion in contingency reserves, allocated for disaster relief in KwaZulu-Natal.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the allocation following the province’s devastating floods last month. During the committee meeting, Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Dean McPherson raised concerns about the funds’ availability.
The DA in KwaZulu-Natal has previously expressed disappointment that no disaster funds have been made available to assist flood victims yet. The party said the R1 billion that was promised by the President has not arrived.
The party said now is the time to act and rebuild, but nothing is being done, adding that it is not satisfied with the pace of aid efforts in the province after last month’s devastating floods.
However, addressing MPs today, Gungubele assured MPs that the money is in Treasury coffers.
“I know undoubtedly that the minister of finance has said there’s one-billion-rand contingency fund which is in the coffers of Treasury. This is a fact; this is not a theory or anything. What the minister would have said is those infrastructure departments whenever their budget allocated to them there is a portion for contingency situations for disaster. Once that is done and finished, they are expected therefore to access the one billion,” says Gungubele.
Video: Ad-Hoc Joint Committee deliberates on funding for flood relief and recovery
-Additional reporting by Khalesakhe Mbense
