Durban — The KwaZulu-Natal government led by Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube has hit back at the DA after the party spoke out on the relocation of flood victims from Truro Hall in Pietermaritzburg.
At the weekend, the DA in KZN issued a statement and wrote a letter to KZN Human Settlements and Public Works MEC Ntuthuko Mahlaba on the living conditions of Truro Hall flood victims and to request that an alternative to temporary residential units (TRUs) be urgently found for the flood victims being housed at the Truro Hall in Pietermaritzburg.
DA Human Settlements and Public Works spokesperson Marlaine Nair said that an oversight visit to the Truro Hall revealed that flood victims were supposed to have been moved out of the hall and to the site of the temporary units on December 15 even though no services were installed at the site as yet.
“We found the flood victims in inhumane, unsanitary conditions with the little children having to endure the stench of sewer overflow all over the yard,” Nair said.
She said the DA was concerned that if these flood victims were moved to a site that has not been approved for construction and was allegedly unsafe, their lives would once again be put at risk come the next downpour. It was vital that the correct procedures were followed and regulations adhered to when relocating flood victims, Nair said.
“Given the concern for their safety and the urgent need to relocate the flood victims, the DA has called on MEC Mahlaba to make use of the alternative to TRUs, the Temporary Emergency Accommodation (TEA) option to urgently relocate the flood victims. As at October this year the Department of Human Settlements had a budget of R106 million for TEAs and only R18 million of that budget had been used to sign up leases for up to 2 years,” Nair said.
Hitting back, Dube-Ncube rejected the statement.
Provincial government spokesperson Lennox Mabaso said that the DA issued a grossly dishonest and disingenuous statement designed to undermine the work that the government had done and continued to do of closing mass care centres and relocating thousands of the May and April flood victims to dignified shelters.
“What the Democratic Alliance is not saying is that the people in Truro Hall are victims of the not-in-my-backyard syndrome perpetrated by the supporters of the Democratic Alliance. The construction of decent accommodation was abruptly halted by individuals wearing DA T-shirts who demanded that no housing for the flood victims be constructed in their backyard. The double standards and contradiction by the DA are alarming,” Mabaso said.
“The DA is also well aware that a land parcel has been purchased to construct decent accommodation for the flood victims. The DA organised its members to deliberately block construction with the aim of stalling the process, and then released a statement.”
Mabaso said that Dube-Ncube had announced that, as planned, the Truro Hall mass care centre in Pietermaritzburg would be closed today, December 20, and all those who had been staying there would be housed in dignified temporary accommodation.
He said that in a week, the government had accommodated more than 1 600 victims in decent shelters and closed mass care centres.
He also said that Dube-Ncube and Mahlaba had been meeting the flood victims living in shelters and placing them in decent accommodation. The two met people in Truro Hall more than three times and all the victims would be moving to the alternative temporary accommodation today.
“The DA must be made to account for the mobilisation against the flood victims through their not-in-my-backyard discreet policy,” Mabaso said.
Daily News