MJEJANE – President Cyril Ramaphosa says government needs to respond swiftly to the disasters for families’ livelihoods to be restored.
This was today during his visit to areas around the Nkomazi Local Municipality to assess the damage caused by heavy rainfall and flooding during the past week.
“Roads are destroyed, children cannot go to school, and houses have been washed away and valuable infrastructure has been damaged. That is precisely what we’re going to be looking at closely.”
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He went on to say although the response from government has been effective, more needs to be done to deal with disasters that befall the country.
“We are now in an era where climate change is quite evident to everyone and we are developing our own disaster responses, so that when we have disasters like these, floods and fires and other forms of disasters, we are able to respond as quickly and as effectively as possible,” he said.
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He added that the focus is to save lives, protect and look after the infrastructure and ensure that the lives and the livelihoods of people are advanced and protected. He also confirmed that the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) is in talks with the inter-ministerial committee.
“The Minister of Finance is in Davos, but we are also briefing him, and we are going to see what intervention government is able to make,” concluded Ramaphosa.
