The declaration of a national disaster due to severe weather conditions and widespread flooding affecting various parts of the country, including Limpopo and Mpumalanga, should be welcomed.
This declaration should come as a relief to provinces whose citizens lost their homes and where infrastructure, including roads and clinics, were destroyed. The bill for repairs amounts to billions of rand.
The severe weather, including heavy rainfall, strong winds, lightning and flooding, affected Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West. It resulted in loss of life, environmental degradation, displacement of communities, disruption to schooling and agricultural activities, and closures of parts of the Kruger National Park.
The declaration means that the national executive takes on the primary responsibility for coordinating and managing the national disaster.
It is hoped that the national executive will have learned from previous national disaster responses and ensures that funds are disbursed quickly, and that rehabilitation efforts are coordinated well to reach those in need.
This should ideally mean that the affected provinces will be able to get back on their feet because of the assistance from the national executive.
However, previous experience has shown that the national executive has been slow in disbursing these much-needed funds.
The Sunday Times reported that in April 2022, after devastating floods killed 448 people and displaced thousands in KwaZulu-Natal, President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged R1bn in emergency relief. By June less than 10% of the promised amount appears to have reached flood-affected communities as survivors continued to live in community halls, tents and backyard shelters.
It was a similar experience for Eastern Cape residents who were displaced by last year’s floods that claimed 102 lives.
Cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Velenkosini Hlabisa has outlined clear expectations: all organs of state across the three spheres of government are required to strengthen support to disaster management structures, implement contingency measures, submit progress reports to the National Disaster Management Centre and ensure a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach to prevention, mitigation, relief and rehabilitation.
What remains uncertain is whether this will be implemented with the urgency and efficiency that circumstances demand.
It is hoped that the national executive will have learned from previous national disaster responses and ensures that funds are disbursed quickly, and that rehabilitation efforts are coordinated well to reach those in need.
Reconstruction efforts, particularly of roads and public infrastructure, should be robust and climate-resilient and be able to withstand adverse weather conditions.
Communities devastated by floods need action and not promises.
A national disaster is only meaningful if it delivers real relief, restores dignity to the displaced and leaves affected provinces stronger and better prepared for the next adverse weather conditions.
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