The Humanitarian organisation, Gift of the Givers, has accused the Western Cape Government of not managing the water crisis in the province adequately. The organisation says it has spent over R60 million on relief efforts in the province with no assistance from the provincial government. The organisation is on Saturday sending 100 000 litres of water to the Karoo town of Laingsburg to assist them with the water crisis at the request of the local municipality.
Founder of the Gift of the Givers, Imtiaz Sooliman, says they have been in talks with government for funding since last year, but nothing has happened so far.
“We loaded 300 containers of bottled water and we brought it at our cost – transporting it from Joburg via Durban, putting it on a boat, transporting it from the harbour in Cape Town to our warehouses. We employ people to move the forklift, hiring a forklift and paying costs every day. It runs into millions when basically it’s the government’s job we’re doing in good faith. They say, ‘carry on, we appreciate your efforts and we will compensate you for the funding’. Those talks started in March 2018, not even 50 cents have been put into our account and we’ve been dealing with crisis after crisis.”
