EDITORIAL | May Eastern Cape flood victims not languish without relief funds like those in KZN

The April 2022 floods in KwaZulu-Natal left a trail of destruction in their wake with the loss of 488 lives and widespread destruction of property.

This prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to pledge R1bn in emergency relief.

It comes as a shock that three years after the floods, some survivors still live in community halls, tents and shelters, while most of the relief funds remain untouched.

The relief funds were reallocated via reprioritisation and conditional grants. The Sunday Times reports that the presidency admitted that reallocation in many cases had not translated into delivery

According to the Sunday Times report, the presidency's figures show that of the R326m allocated under the KwaZulu-Natal emergency housing grant, R140m was transferred, and by August 2022, R55.4m had been spent. The report stated that a further R145m from the disaster response grant was never disbursed. In total, less than 10% of the promised R1bn appears to have reached the affected communities.   

What is worrying about this state of affairs is that no-one in the provincial government seems to be taking responsibility for the failure to use the funds meant to assist those in need.

Efforts by the media and NGOs to find out from various provincial departments what happened to the flood relief money have drawn a blank. This is worrying, as government should account for how public money is spent and explain the failure to use the much-needed funds.

While finance MEC Francois Rodgers said this week the matter arose before he was appointed, he had warned in 2022 that neglected flood victims were frustrated and angry. His party, the DA, warned at the time that if the matter was not urgently attended to, a revolt against the government was imminent.

If there was efficient accountability and oversight, the public would have been given an explanation of what happened. This is not the case here.

Officials tasked with spending the relief money should ensure they perform their tasks diligently. 

With the recent floods in Mthatha, which resulted in the deaths of close to 100 people, officials in that province should not let what occurred in KwaZulu-Natal happen again.

They should ensure they follow correct channels to have the funds released and to use those funds to help the people who have suffered. Victims in Mthatha should not have to wait years for their lives to return to normal as was the case in KZN.

The executive should not hesitate to crack the whip on errant public officials who are found to be sleeping on the job while disaster survivors continue to suffer.

Government should also ensure that those employed in those critical posts are skilled and experienced and are not political deployees with no skills and vision to help the destitute.

It is an insult to human dignity for families to still be living in community halls and tents three years after they overcame tragedy and when some of them lost their loved ones, when there are funds available to ameliorate their plight.

Here is to hoping that with the government of national unity in place for a year, a push will be made to address some of these housing backlogs which the “caring” ANC government failed to deal with.

Government should do better.