Government response to flood disaster inadequate, says auditor-general

The government’s overall response to the flood disaster in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape was too slow and failed to meet the needs of the affected communities at the time they required it.

This is the conclusion made by the auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke when she presented her report before the ad hoc joint committee on flood disaster and recovery in parliament on Wednesday.

Maluleke told the committee that while there was an improvement, particularly by the SA Social Security Agency, flowing from the experience of Covid-19 relief, other spheres of government had not taken their lessons to respond to the flood disaster.

She said the government’s own plans, as at July 2022, had not been met.

 “We found that in the Eastern Cape, there was concern that even previous disasters had not been dealt with. They were still dealing with matters dating back to 2013. Even just assessing the impact of the new disaster had not been done on time.

“We believe that there needs to be some significant attention around capacity, planning and coordination of different activities within municipality and provincial government,” Maluleke said.

There were also problems in the delivery of water in Ethekwini metro.

About 83% of the residents said they did not receive water for one day while 57% of the resident said they went for three days without water.

“We found that this was caused by poor coordination between Ethekwini metro, the province and the national department [of water and sanitation].

 “What happened was the metro had its own fleet of water tankers and not all of them were available because of fleet management weaknesses. Only 62% of water tankers belonging to the metro were available to be used. Some were in for repairs and others could not be tracked or identified,” Maluleke said

“Sometimes, because of procurement disparities, you would find that the same service provider would charge the metro less than what it is charging the provincial department. If there was better coordination, you would have value for money.”

Maluleke said the findings have been shared with the metro and it has committed to addressing them.

More than 450 people were killed in April this year when floods ravaged KwaZulu-Natal and parts of the Eastern Cape. About 40,000 people were left homeless in KwaZulu-Natal alone. The floods also damaged schools, government buildings, roads and rail infrastructure.

The government has set aside R1bn to provide relief to the affected communities.

So far of the R106.7m budget for social relief, R34.46m has been spent.

Of the R100.4m budgeted for water and sanitation, R30.69m has been spent.

Of the R342m budgeted for human settlements, only R33.14m has been spent.

The R18.63m budgeted for schools has been spent.

dlaminip@sowetan.co.za