Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers speaks about the KZN flood relief efforts

Alright, let's shift our focus now to KwaZulu Natal. It's over a

month since those devastating floods, and for many people, life

is nowhere near back to normal. Ngo, gift of the givers we know,

has been working very closely with government and other organizations

trying to help people who've lost their homes, who've lost

everything. In fact, let's speak now to the Foundation's director,

Dr intiaz Suleiman, Dr Suleiman, thank you so much for your time

this evening. So we know that people have lost their homes,

they've lost their possessions. We know that water has been out of

commission because of the pipes that were broken and sort of

drifted away. Which of the areas that you're most concerned about

over one month on since the floods,

two main areas. Good evening Sally and condolences to the ANC and to

the ex the mayor and his family. You know it's a great loss to the

city and to the country and to his family. You know, our deepest

condolences to the family, to really Travis news to hear that

right now

that the areas that we seriously consider about is the fact that

houses haven't started here, you know, Aussie hasn't commenced in

the huge volumes of homes that have been lost. People are still

staying with neighbors, but family with friends still staying in

halls and community centers. That's not going to be last for

long. People may then be forced to go back and burn on the flood

plains where we don't want them to go, and where the problem started

in the first place. That's a major challenge. The second challenge

is, which is a huge challenge, is the water system that has broken

down in Tonga, and they were looking at eight to 10 months to

repair, and that process hasn't commenced yet. That's a major,

major challenge. And right now, so different mechanisms of supporting

water inside Tonga. When I say Tonga, I mean the communities, the

informal settlements, areas around Tonga. On the outside, all those

areas, there's bottled water, there's tankers, and we busy. We

build, we visit. Our 10th ball, already, many more to be drilled

in area. The third area that needs a strength in is the schools. A

lot of schools need to be repaired, and we already started

starting repair of those schools. We've commissioned project

managers, engineers, they've been on site. The plans have been drawn

up in terms of what has to be repaired, the costing, and we've

already given the contract for the first nine schools to be repaired.

And the last one, which also very worrying, are the clinics and the

hospitals that require

repair, because in the one of the things that has happened in the

floods in Eastern Cape last year, there's 49 health facilities which

haven't really paid up to Lao falling the flood damage last

year. And all those facilities, you know, it's a huge loss to the

patients who come to it. We don't want a similar situation.

Insights, in case they didn't, where many people cannot attend

health facilities because of infrastructure problems. So those

are the main areas. By five large requirement for food, and food has

decreased substantially for hygiene packs. You know, bottled

water is still required because water comes and goes. But the

other areas that I mentioned are the critical areas. So I want to

try and get an idea of the numbers. You say that houses have

not started yet. So the building of houses for people who lost

their homes, the allocation of areas where they can build safely.

Do you have a number of how many people are in this situation? You

talk about more than 40 or 50,000 people. You know you're talking

about the number of houses informal settlements, more than

4000 homes in in that category. And besides that, so many homes

have been destroyed. We only saw the real effect of this flood,

like three weeks afterwards, not not during the flood itself, and

not in the first few days. I mean, I'm driving the roads right now,

and you know, because the sinkhole is on the entry, which has finally

been repaired yesterday, you have to use side roads. And when you

take the side roads off the highway, you realize how extensive

the storm actually was, how far down the how? How far down case it

then it came towards marysburg. Yes, there was some damage in

marysburg, in Finlay, in amsterdale Ridge, you know, in

Phillips day. But you actually see the houses, the land, the

topography, the roads, how they've been cut. It's huge. And when

you're driving to other areas, when you're going on site visits,

you're seeing a lot of things which everybody didn't capture,

because it's just so much. There's so much. So the destruction is

far, far, far more than what we know. That's astonishing. I mean,

when you said 40 to 50,000 people who are still waiting for some

form of shelter beyond where they're staying currently in a

community hall. Do you have a figure on how many people are

being affected by this tongot water supply situation, which

you're saying is going to take months to fix?

Will you entire town? You

know, it's just 1000s of people. I don't know the exact figures, but

there's 1000s of people, because if you ask them, they said they

never knew so many people to stay in the town only when they saw the

flood damage and they saw the houses getting washed away. It's

only then that the people who live in the town for years suddenly

realized there's so many people in the town, and there's 1000s of

houses, you know, along the flood plains, you know, in one area,

along 2000 the other one, 1000 The other area, 500 and then the

community is going further out. You multiplied it by five or six

feet, Charles, it's.

Going to run it 10s of 1000s of people. Wow. I want to ask

remember when they're going to divert they're going to dive from

pipelines, from water from other areas? You know, they look at

contingency plans. But when that happens, the areas where the water

is coming from, they going to have a dip in their water supply. So

when you going to try to solve a problem in one side, you're going

to have water rationing in other areas. And besides Tonga, you

know, we're still getting feedback from other areas saying they have

no water, not only because of the floods, some people haven't had

water since 2002

so there's other areas we have to look at that require water,

besides the plant damaged areas, I want to get a sense from you.

You're saying that these houses that they haven't started

rebuilding. Do you have a sense why? And the reason I'm asking

that because I want to know if you believe that funding is the

problem. My understanding of how the funding for these rebuilds

will happen is that the provincial government and the city will take

its funds available so that it's released easier, so the rebuild

can start, and at that point, they can then apply to be reimbursed

from Treasury. Do you have any understanding of whether there's a

blockage of funds? That's part of the problem.

It may be part of the problem, but that's not the only problem. The

problem is government systems. You know what they it first of all,

also make a decision which land to give. You can't build on a flood

plain anymore, so you got to build somewhere else. What decision does

that fall under? National proper housing, human settlements,

provincial human settlements, integrity, municipality, and

that's the biggest problem in system, that even you put the

money down, they won't know how to spend it, because the mechanisms

to spend it is very complicated. So it's not only a question of

money. Yes, there is some issue about money not coming through,

and money being available and not being available, that is a major

crisis. But more than that is the system and the mechanism for how

to release that money to make sure it goes to the right people at the

right time. And it's one month, it's too late. You know, the

station have started weeks ago. Because disaster by definition,

when you declare a national disaster by definition, it's

urgency, emergency and disaster, and those three things are not

applied, and that's a major the downfall of government about every

disaster. As I said, the clinics in the Eastern Cape are still not

rebuilt ended up in November last year, yeah, very quickly. What is

your tally of how many people who are still missing

from our Telly that we last had was 237, you know, and most of

those have not been found. Those were from the feedback directly

that we got from the families and from the neighbors, name, age

area, are washed away where they were, what fell on them, and

that's from what they know about. The ones that they don't know.

Nobody knows. To me, they tell is probably far more than 300 not

even beyond that.

Alright? Thank you so much for that update. Distressing news, but

important to keep it in the public eye. Gift to the givers, Director

Doctor India Suleman telling us there are 40 to 50,000 people who

are sheltering in halls and places like that. No work has begun yet

properly to find them new plots for homes to get their homes

rebuilt. This is over a month since the floods. More news in a

moment. I.