A national state of disaster has been declared to help communities of badly flooded parts of SA.
President Cyril Ramaphosa meets people who lost family members during flooding in Clermont, Durban. File photo.President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Monday night after the devastating floods that severely damaged parts of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.Below is an unedited copy of his speech:
Heavy rainfall and flooding have also been experienced in the Eastern Cape, particularly in the districts of Alfred Nzo, Joe Gqabi and OR Tambo, where roads, bridges and houses have been extensively damaged, especially in the Port St Johns' area. On the other side of the country, the community of Langa is counting the cost of a devastating fire, which destroyed about 300 homes and displaced around 1,000 people.
There has also been extensive damage to public infrastructure, including schools, health facilities, police stations and magistrates' courts. To ensure an effective response to these tragic events, the National Disaster Management Centre last week classified the flooding as a provincial disaster. With the heavy rains and flooding in the Eastern Cape and indications from the South African Weather Service that the North West and Free State may also be affected by bad weather, it is clear that there are other areas of the country that need emergency intervention.
Second, we will focus on stabilisation and recovery, rehousing people who have lost homes and restoring provision of services.This will not only involve the construction and repair of major infrastructure. This includes the deployment of SAPS personnel, diving teams, canine units and various vessels, helicopters and fixed-wing planes to the most affected areas.
I wish to applaud and thank the many individuals and organisations that have taken the initiative to provide humanitarian assistance to those most affected.I have met with the leadership of the Solidarity Fund to ask that it makes its capacity available to confront this dire emergency. The bank account details will be available during the course of tomorrow on the website of the Solidarity Fund.
Areas without water are being supplied by water tankers, with the municipal fleet being complemented by an additional 100 tankers. A national team of project managers and engineers have been deployed in the province to assess the damage and to advise on the rebuilding. Progress has been made in restoring operations at the Port of Durban, opening alternative routes for trucks to access the port terminals and clean up debris in the harbour.
It will be critical, as we undertake this work, that all the resources we mobilise are used for their intended purposes and reach the intended recipients.Learning from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are drawing together various stakeholders to be part of an oversight structure to ensure all funds disbursed to respond to this disaster are properly accounted for and that the state receives value for money.
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