Umm Muhammed Umar

A few months ago, devastating floods in KwaZulu – Natal left more than 400 people deceased, with still scores of people unaccounted for, and thousands homeless. It has now emerged that government has only built 108 temporary structures for the victims of April’s devastating floods, in which homes and entire villages and settlements were swept away. In response to a written parliamentary question from DA MP Emma Powell, Human Settlements Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi said the plan is to construct approximately 1810 units. Radio Islam spoke to Emma Powell.

Powell said that there were over 6000 people displaced, and more than 17 000 homes damaged back in early April, yet now in July, three months later, government has managed to complete less than 10 percent of their target. Powell said that predominantly, women and children still remain in halls. She said that many of the men have gone back to try and rebuild on the slopes, where they originally lost their houses. She said, “Sassa has stopped the feeding program. Nobody’s providing gas for cooking, other than NGOs. As you know the Gift of the Givers has been incredible in their response.” Powell added, “many of the halls have got no running water, no shower facilities, the toilets aren’t being cleaned, the situation is an absolute disaster on the ground.”

Powell has been in communication with Minister Kubayi. She said that according to the minister’s response, the deadline for 1810 temporary residential units was the end of July. She said, “it’s now mid-month and they’ve completed 10%. And, ultimately this comes down to logistics and a coordination problem.” Powell added, “Government has left victims in the lurch, because they are incompetent, and they are simply unable to coordinate responses.” President Cyril Ramaphosa had guaranteed that R1 billion would immediately be reprioritized for the purposes of human settlements. To date that money has never materialized. Powell said, “It was also not additional funding. It was essentially already existing funding that had been allocated to certain housing grants.” She added, “Ultimately, in a nutshell, what we do know is that Treasury has only now finally approved a transfer of R140 million from national government from the emergency housing grant that covers all emergencies nationally. There are 199 sites in KZN that have built infrastructure that nobody can relocate to, due to the issue of funds.

According to Powell, the R1 billion promised was just a pipe dream. She said, “We know that government doesn’t have the money. And we also know that government doesn’t have the competency and the skills, nor the political will to resolve this problem.” She added, “We know that the National Department of Human Settlements has got two grants. One is the provincial emergency grant of about R300 million a year for all provinces, and then they’ve got a municipal grant, which is about R175 million. So, if we add those two figures together, they’ve got about R500 million, but that means that national governments simply can’t respond to any other emergencies around.” Powell said that the way that it could be solved would be by bringing the right stakeholders to the table, ensuring there are competent officials managing this process, and that there’s political will to get it done. She said, “Unfortunately, the way things stand we simply don’t have any of those metrics at present.”