Collective effort above all

IT HAS been a month since KwaZulu-Natal and eThekwini Municipality experienced the worst floods in recent years. This catastrophe claimed hundreds of lives and left thousands homeless. The total damage to our infrastructure is R3.8 billion, excluding human settlements.

Scores of our residents and businesses had to contend living without access to basic services for days. Infrastructure can be replaced, while anguish because of deaths will remain permanent in all families.

It is why we continue to send our heartfelt condolences to all of them as they are in bereavement.

We can confirm that 446 people lost their lives, with many still missing in eThekwini.

Our search and recovery efforts are ongoing as part of our efforts to help families finally find closure. We are aware that there are still several families who remain in limbo as they continue to pray for the recovery of their loved ones.

Our teams continue to work tirelessly to ensure that all missing people are found. We want to assure all these families that we are with them during this time, and their pain is our pain.

To date, through the Motsepe Foundation, we have been able to process the burials of 129 people, and we are committed to seeing this process through so that no one is left behind.

Last week I dedicated a whole day to monitor progress being made on work carried out by our teams to rebuild our city. I was very impressed with the giant leap forward our teams have made to get our infrastructure back on track within a short space of time.

Over 100 power stations were severely affected by the floods. Many parts of our city were, as a consequence, plunged into darkness. We are pleased to report that all our power stations are now in good working condition and electricity services have been fully restored in almost all communities except in areas where there are challenges of cable theft.

Following the large amount of water that entered our system, our engineers have warned us that certain areas are occasionally going to experience unplanned outages because of sub-stations tripping.

We are faring well in restoring water and our water supply has improved substantially.

● In the Inner West Region, water supply has improved from 30% to 80%.

● In the Outer West Region, it has improved from 45% to 70%.

● Central Region from 45% to 72% Southern Region has improved from 15% to 75% after we have completed repairs on the Umlazi Carnal Pipeline and Prince Mshiyeni Hospital Pipeline.

● Supply in the Northern Region has steadily improved from 40% to 45% due to the interventions we are making in oThongathi.

The assessment we conducted on our water infrastructure last month revealed that the heavy rains also damaged our water treatment plant in oThongathi. It will take approximately six months to repair at an estimated cost of R30m.

However, through the interventions we have made, the people of oThongathi will now be able to receive water from their taps at least four hours per day by the end of this week. In addition, we have already deployed 20 water tankers and started to drill three boreholes.

Our economy that was beginning to pick up after the destruction inflicted by Covid-19 was not spared. It has also been battered severely by this calamity, as many industries literally had to cease operations.

Based on the preliminary data from the survey we have conducted, the most affected sectors of our economy are manufacturing, with an estimated damage of R431m, agriculture R12.6m, construction R18m, wholesale and retail R46m and warehousing and logistics R33m. We are currently engaging the provincial and national governments on what support can be provided to all affected businesses, including SMMEs.

We want to commend our engineering teams for their sterling work in completing remedial work to our strategic and economic routes, particularly the N2, M4 and M7, which were badly damaged. We are pleased that there is now limited access to the port, which allows for the movement of essential goods.

The tourism sector is also counting the costs of this disaster. Since the floods occurred during the week of the Good Friday long weekend, the city lost about 30000 visitors, with a total loss of about R75m to the GDP. To kickstart the tourism sector after the floods and demonstrate our resilience, the city just hosted a successful Africa Travel Indaba 2022.

It was attended by over 3 700 delegates. This event allowed us to showcase the city as the destination of choice to the international buyers. We want to send a message that Durban is open for business. We are a resilient city and we have always bounced back after such incidents.

In the next few weeks, we will be embarking on the national roadshow campaign. The intention is to promote the winter season hospitality packages across the country.

They will be headlined by the Hollywoodbets Durban July Experience, set to take place on July 2 at Greyville racecourse.

Following the opening of the skies in the SADC region, we will be taking our Winter Campaign to other neighbouring countries such as eSwatini. This comes after Royal Eswatini Air is due to start flying to King Shaka International Airport from Monday to Saturday starting from the first week of June.

We are also continuing to work with the region’s route development committee to attract more international flights and enhance intra-Africa trade.

This follows the commencement of direct flights on the Air Link route from Harare to Durban, operating three times a week as from March this year.

With all these interventions, we are confident that our tourism sector will bounce back after this disaster.

We are continuing to work with all social partners, including business, organised labour and civil society to ensure that the restoration and rebuilding process is fast-tracked.

We will forever be indebted to our residents for their patience each time we experience difficulties that are beyond our control. We are also extending our gratitude to the civil society, business community and ordinary citizens of eThekwini for emptying their wallets solely to help those in need.

It is not for the first time that these important stakeholders demonstrated their subscription to the concept of Ubuntu each time we encounter difficulties.

The entire political leadership of eThekwini must be commended for also playing its part. It is very important that when adversity is staring at us, we must put our political differences aside and work together.

We are leaders, and millions of people out there are expecting us to come up with solutions to all their problems irrespective of their political persuasion.

We must always be mindful of the reality that it is only when we work as a collective shall we triumph over adversity.