Villagers still living in devastation as they wait for help
LOCAL and district municipalities continue to point fingers at each other over who is responsible for relief aid after villagers lost their homes three weeks ago during a violent storm in Kayamnandi village near Alice.
Many community members lost everything when a tornado tore down more than 50 houses.
In its coverage of the event, Daily Dispatch reported Amathole District Municipality (ADM) spokesman Siya Makunga as saying ADM, Raymond Mhlaba municipality and the department of human settlements would come together to provide the community with temporary shelters.
Community members were also promised food parcels a few days after the disaster struck.
Weeks later, however, there is still no indication of where help will come from, and the villagers have been left to fend for themselves.
Yesterday Makunga said ADM was not directly involved in managing disasters. “ADM is just a co-ordinating agent; we don’t do anything tangible to assist affected communities. There must be a confusion of roles here.”
Raymond Mhlaba spokeswoman Cynthia Mokitimi would not comment on the matter, referring the newspaper to ADM for answers.
After sending the Dispatch from pillar to post, human settlements spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha acknowledged that the department had received applications for temporary housing, and these “were still being processed by the department”.
Most of the displaced villagers are currently squatting with friends and family members while waiting for relief to come. But not all of them have the luck of decent shelter over their heads.
Seventy-three-yearold Priscilla Machakela’s house crumbled under the storm, leaving her with no option but to move into a dilapidated mud house she shares with her six family members. Machaleka fears this house might collapse on them at any moment.
“I live with five of my grandkids and my son. We spent 24 years building the house brick by brick, but everything we had was damaged in that storm. My grandkids are young. I’m scared that this house will fall on us one day. We were promised food and temporary housing structures but nothing has come. No one’s even been here to give us an update of how long we’ll have to wait before receiving help.”
Angry villager Nomathokazi Peter said the silence from government showed her that they didn’t care about the community’s wellbeing.
“We’ve received no help whatsoever, and we’re crammed in the homes of family with no indication of when we’ll be helped. It’s hard to pick up the pieces of our lives because we are stuck in limbo.”
Kayamnandi ward councillor Thobeka Mjo said she had knocked on every possible door, with no success. “I’ve been given the runaround for weeks now, and I don’t know what to do anymore. We were promised help would come a few days after the disaster.”
She said the village should have been declared a disaster area because of the large number of people who lost homes. —