STAFF REPORTER
Parliament’s Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Tuesday Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery conducted an oversight visit to the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality to assess the extent to which the government has provided assistance towards flood disaster relief and recovery for victims.
The two-day visit on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Gauteng Province, relates to the damage caused by the floods that occurred from December 2022 to February 2023.
The committee has been mandated by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces to oversee the relief and recovery action after the occurrence of floods in five provinces including Gauteng.
The committee, chaired by Cedric Frolick and Jomo Nyambi, said it is not pleased with the unresponsiveness shown by the City of Tshwane towards flood victims who have been accommodated in shelters after they lost their homes.
The committee received briefings from the Gauteng Provincial Government’s MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and from the City of Tshwane.
The committee expressed disappointment about the absence of the City of Tshwane’s Executive Mayor Cilliers Brink, who was supposed to lead the municipality’s delegation.
After the briefings, the committee conducted an oversight visit to a flood risk settlement and to the Nellmapius Community Hall in Mamelodi, one of the shelters that accommodate flood victims.
The committee members said they struggled to obtain definite information around the number of people that are accommodated in the shelter, as the flood victims told the committee that the figures provided by the municipality were incorrect and very low.
The committee said that it noted that what it saw in Tshwane is similar to what it saw previously in other areas that have been affected by floods.
According to the committee, there is a general unresponsiveness from the parties that are responsible for the provision of relief assistance required by the flood victims.
Nyambi said the committee has noted with disappointment the absence of political leadership in the City of Tshwane that is required to lead efforts in ensuring that the required resources are channeled in the right direction to reach the flood victims.
The committee believes that the departments that have a role to play should step up the disaster relief recovery efforts.
The committee heard that some of the flood victims have lost their identity documents and their children have lost birth certificates and the Department of Home Affairs has a role for the issuance of the new documents.
“The victims are currently living in inhumane conditions in the shelters where the ablution facilities are not working, they have no access to water and sanitation and the responsible government departments at the local, provincial and national spheres of government should provide assistance,” Nyambi said.
The victims who live in shelters told the committee that they have not received any assistance from the Department of Social Development which the committee believes has a role to play in salvaging the flood victims from the quagmire in which they have been sinking since the flooding last summer.
The committee also heard from the MEC that there is a lack of cooperation between the local and provincial governments and that renders the relief and recovery efforts meaningless.
The committee has called on both spheres of government to respond to the dictates of the principle of cooperative governance by working together to ensure that the flood victims receive the relief assistance they require.
The committee will continue with its Gauteng province leg of the oversight visit tomorrow at the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The oversight visit will start at the Soweto Theatre at 9:00 on Wednesday morning.
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