A total of R100m has been set aside to assist small businesses affected by the recent floods in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
This was revealed by small business development minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams at a media engagement session in Mthatha on Thursday afternoon.
She said each province would be allocated R50m and that 50% of the money would be provided by her ministry and the balance by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC).
Ndabeni-Abrahams and water and sanitation minister spent two days in the Eastern Cape this week, visiting areas hard-hit by the floods in the OR Tambo district.
“We have made available around R100m for small businesses that are underinsured or not insured, in both KZN and Eastern Cape,” Ndabeni-Abrahams said.
“While houses have been damaged, we discovered that many farming projects were hardest hit. Informal traders were also among those hardest hit.”
Ndabeni-Abrahams said about 100 families in Ingquza Hill local municipality alone had lost their homes due to the floods.
She said in Port St Johns, several bridges and access roads had also been washed away.
This affected the taxi industry and rural shop owners because gravel access roads had been rendered impassable.
Significant damage had also been caused to crops.
The minister said the government would send experts to the two provinces to assess whether the money had gone to the intended beneficiaries.
“We are aware that there are some people who tend to exploit these kind of opportunities.
“We want to be thorough so that this kind of support is not open to manipulation and corruption.
“If we find that you have lied, you can go to jail,” she said.
Ndabeni-Abrahams said beneficiaries would have to provide proof of identity, what kind of business they were involved in and how it had been affected by the floods.
She said some of the affected farming projects had contracts to supply produce to big retailers.
The operators of many such projects she had visited in the OR Tambo district had expressed concern that they could lose these contracts because their crops had been washed away.
“It [government support] does not mean we will change their situation, but we hope it will keep them operating,” the minister said.
At least 143 farming projects in the Ingquza Hill local municipality had been affected.
Mchunu, meanwhile, said that several water treatment works plants in the Mhlontlo, King Sabata Dalindyebo and Nyandeni local municipalities had been damaged by the recent floods.
This had resulted in many villagers having to survive without water.
The Mhlanga reservoir in Libode, which distributes clean drinking water to the town and at least 52 villages, had been damaged.
Mchunu said water tankers were being sent to the affected communities including three in KSD, two in Mhlontlo, two in Port St Johns and three in Nyandeni.
Turning his attention to raw sewage spillages in Mthatha, he said officials had discovered that at least 10 wastewater treatment pumps were dysfunctional. As a result, not enough wastewater was being treated.
“At the moment, we are very concerned with [sewage] spillages into communities,” he said.
But plans to fix the pumps had already been drawn up.
Seven of the dysfunctional pumps would be fixed by the end of May, a further two would be repaired in July while the last one would take until September next year to fix.
“We think once it is done, water and sanitation will flow smoothly,” Mchunu said.
The two ministers were not in a position to estimate the total damage caused by the floods.
Ndabeni-Abrahams told journalists that this was because damage assessments were continuing on a daily basis and the reports of damage to infrastructure and households were increasing every day.
OR Tambo district mayor Mesuli Ngqondwana said the 10 tankers provided by the water and sanitation department would augment the district municipality’s own water tankers, which it had purchased in recent years.
They would be used primarily to transport water to flood-hit communities across the district.
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