Imtiaz Sooliman – ‘There’s a lot of work to do to help flood victims’

Right? Let's talk more about the state of disaster declaration in

regards to the flooding, we're joined by the gift of the giver.

Sounder, Dr India, Suleiman, Doctor Suman. A very good evening

to you, grateful for your time. You work in disaster situations

regularly in this country, how unusual is it to have such

flooding in seven of the country's nine provinces?

Good evening to you. It's not normal to see that kind of stuff.

But then again, the weather pattern hasn't been normal since

the tsunami of 2004

we've seen enormous changes in weather patterns in the country,

the continent and throughout the world. We've seen cyclone a die in

2019

at the same time, when you had the cyclone affecting Malawi, Zimbabwe

and Mozambique, with severe floods in Durban around the same time, we

had a severe flooding in Durban last year, and you could you got

strange weather patterns in the Eastern Cape. You got floods on

the one side and water deprivation on the other side. Similar

situation in the Northern Cape, and again, in gauteng, you've got

floods on the one side and water deprivation, not because of

drought, but because of inefficient municipal systems. So

it's a very and of course, we've been seeing more

bad weather patterns and more storm damage and more destruction,

more often for greater intensity in many parts of the country. Two

years ago, we had a severe storm in amtata, of course, severe

damage. You know, earlier this year,

the floods in London last year, the floods in East London. So the

frequency of the disturbances or the destruction or the natural

disasters is happening more often and getting bigger in terms of the

destruction and the damage it causes in that period of time. And

given the scale of this flooding, this widespread flooding, where

have you as gifted, the givers been able to dispatch your teams

this time round.

We visit in Pomona right now, and lots of work in Eastern Cape,

komanic, Queenstown area, the other provinces you haven't called

yet, so we don't act until we get a call from representatives from

the different provinces. Until that happens, we don't move, we

can urgently. We got calls from Eastern Cape, from Queenstown,

from komani, and there's several municipalities in the area that

has been affected. We've been working there, from there last

week, in this morning, right now, as I'm talking to you, in area

close to maladan, you couldn't enter. 35 more than 35 villages

have been cut off. Then, I mean the municipal people, disaster

management people put some rocks in the gap in the river where the

bridge is broken. And my teams, together with the mayor and the

councilors and local disaster people carried the food items that

we brought across the bridge by foot and took it to the other

side. They made arrangements for somebody for a taxi to come. So

the taxi loaded items and they could take you to villages 30

kilometers away, 8180 families were affected. On the one side,

they came back, went to another side with 61 families came back

and went back again, 45 families. It's all small families, but it's

scattered in several villages. But by road, you can't get from one

side to the other side. You know you need helicopters. And right

now, fortunately, they managed to call a taxi from that side, but

they walked across rocks to the other side to deliver the the food

parcels. So involved in those traders. And Puma Laga, of course,

is overlapping with the popo. It's, you know, it is a boundary

demarcation area. It's part of a complication, so, but we're

waiting. We haven't been called. From there, the other provinces

haven't called us yet. As far as Gauteng, we responded in Alexandra

last week at the Yaks river. I don't know how many times in our

history we've responded to France in the yaksi river. We even put up

a housing village right there in over 105 houses. Fortunately, that

has never been damaged ever again. You mentioned yaksi River and the

Alexandra area. It's a recurring flash point for flooding, because

we know, as things stand, the homes that are both there have

been erected much too close to the banks of that river. So when it

does overflow, it creates a problem. How much of the flood

disasters in South Africa are or can be blamed on infrastructure,

ie,

homes both too close to the banks of rivers, or shoddy

infrastructure where bridges and roads are simply not stable enough

to withstand the force of flood water.

In terms of houses on flood plains, I can't say that short

infrastructure, it's people who live in low lying areas. The case

had done floods was a total disaster last year, but so many

homes getting washed away. The problem is there's no advanced

planning. You know, you tell people, okay, you are the message

is given, don't build on low lying areas, and then you don't give

them an alternative. We need to have a system where alternatives

are created, but to get in buying from communities to say, Okay,

this is alternative. It's slightly higher ground, but it's 500 meters

more, or kilometer more from your work than what it was previously

to have to have that kind of negotiations with people.

Transport costs are very expensive. Depends where the kids

go to school, so the one side.

You know, building houses. It's done by people on the low planes.

But the floods last year, it didn't matter which plane you were

built on, that flood came and destroyed well built houses. There

were landslides. Boundary walls collapsed. I'm not sure that's an

infrastructure problem. A lot of boundary walls had no holes in it,

so the water just dammed up behind the wall and pushed the whole

thing down, which then fell on a house, which then fell, in one

case where we went on a domestic and she died under the rubble. So

I mean municipal planning or municipal laws may have to now

create some type of manner in which poverty walls are built.

That's an example. The other player comes in terms of

infrastructure, because I don't know what standards our bridges

follow. I'm not saying this poor construction work and then entry

the m4 you know the highways in America. I mean, in Durban and

other parts of the country, they must be following a certain

standard and built according to the standard. But it seems the

weather patterns are getting far more severe. That's destroying

those bridges. Do the bridges in other parts of the world get

damaged by the type of weather that we're having, or are they are

the bridges built strongly and the roads build more strongly? I don't

know. Only an engineer can answer that question. Whether we need to

upgrade the quality of the roads and bridges that we're building,

or it doesn't matter what we're building the storm where the

storms are still going to destroy it. I know I can't answer that

question. Only an engineer can answer that very briefly. Dr

Suliman, what are the areas where you are present at the moment been

able to respond the provincial governments? Would they be able to

respond adequately without national intervention, as per this

declaration?

Well, I am a problem with the National declaration. You know,

not that there's anything wrong. What would say you're going to do?

You decline a national state of disaster. The implementation is a

problem for me. You know, when you say national state of disaster

doesn't mean you're now acting four months time, one year's time,

or these it's in response within four hours. The government doesn't

have a track record through the court of responding urgently. You

know, urgent urgency, emergency and disaster are three words, not

in the vocabulary they don't understand the disasters require

urgent response. And the problem with that is the system of

disaster management is the total disaster in the country. We had

ministers calling us when the floods were taking place in the

sun in London last year, telling us our laws don't allow us to act,

to deliver things, to give goods, to get to the people. Can you

please help? And the person said, I'm a minister, and I can't do it.

The system has to be changes, too many different sectors. Is it

disaster management? Is it human settlement? Is it water

sanitation? Is it cocktail? Is it national? Is it provincial? Is it

local? Is it it's police driven? Is it Defense Force? Who's in

charge? And that's a problem. So on the one side, the system is

chaotic. Secondly, when the disaster happens, the LED state,

they declared the state of disaster for covid. How many

hospitals got PPEs in time? In fact, more of the money, about 14

point 7 billion, were missing. The PPEs were not delivered. Oxygen.

Points were not put in. Additional staff was not put in hospitals,

additional equipment was not put in. What kind of a state of

disaster are you declaring the floods in 2022

in in KZN, up till now, a lot of places haven't been rebuilt. The

water system is a mess. The sewage system is a mess. Roads have not

been properly fixed up. Houses have not been built again. How

fast does it filter down to the people? Is the same thing will

happen here? Will we see disaster people tomorrow morning in the

different areas? Will helicopters come? What is disaster management

come? What food parcels be delivered? What people be taken to

share with safety? Let's see that happens tomorrow. That's what you

mean by national disaster. If that's not happening, happening,

just wasting your time declaring an announcement like that. Doctor

ms Suliman, founder of the gift of the givers, good to have your time

as always. So thank you. So.