Plans in place to move KZN flood victims to permanent homes
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The KwaZulu-Natal Public Works and Human Settlement chairperson Makhosazana Zungu said there are plans in place to move flood victims into permanent residences. A joint oversight visit by the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature’s Public Works Portfolio Committee together with the Gauteng Legislature Infrastructure Development and Property Management Portfolio Committee at King Dinizulu Hospital. Picture: Tumi Pakkies/African News Agency(ANA). Picture: Tumi Pakkies/African News Agency(ANA)
Durban - Progress is being made to ensure flood victims are moved from temporary structures into permanent accommodation.
This is according to the KwaZuluNatal Public Works and Human Settlements portfolio committee chairperson, Makhozana Zungu. Zungu was speaking during the committee’s oversight visit at the King Dinuzulu Hospital in Sydenham yesterday.
The visit was a joint oversight by the KZN Legislature’s portfolio committee together with Gauteng Legislature’s infrastructure development and property management portfolio committee.
Zinhle Zungu, a senior Public Works Department official, said flood victims were placed in temporary shelters last December, and they were now planning to move them to permanent housing.
“For people who were displaced and affected by the floods, there is an arrangement in place to buy land and build houses for them; that initiative will happen,” Zungu said.
She added that the Department of Human Settlements and Public Works had made remarkable progress regarding the housing of flood victims.
“Even with the available budget for the province it becomes difficult to do the work speedily, but we appreciate the work done by the National Treasury in providing us with funding to do the work,” she said.
The Gauteng committee’s chairperson, Mpho Modise, said the committee applauded how KZN had handled last year’s floods.
“We are very impressed with what KZN has been doing in building infrastructure, what happened was a disaster and disasters happen at any given time.
“The way the KZN provincial government responded to the floods is quite amazing, and I think if we could respond to anything like KZN did, South Africa would be a better country,” he said.
Modise said that from what he had been reading, KZN had performed well in terms of fixing infrastructure damaged by the floods.
“The KZN government is not going to do everything at once, it is not possible. Ever since the floods, there has been something that the government is doing,” Modise said.