Durban — The United National Transport Union (Untu) has claimed that there is no hope that the government will be able to assist flood and landspout victims in KwaZulu-Natal.

This comes after eThekwini residents in Inanda saw their homes destroyed during heavy rain last Tuesday. Seven people were killed and others were displaced from their homes.

Untu has condemned what it calls a failure by the government to implement disaster relief.

Untu spokesperson Atenkosi Plaatjie said that the victims of last year’s heavy rains remained displaced despite many promises made by government officials and politicians.

“It makes it even worse when the government fails to adequately implement disaster relief projects when the funds are readily available. This failure by the eThekwini Municipality and the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government should be condemned in the strongest terms possible,” said Plaatjie.

Meanwhile, last week the Daily News reported that Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said that her department was aware of some of the April 2022 flood victims who had still not received assistance.

Kubayi said that their challenge was that the people who were staying in community halls were the only ones who registered to get assistance and other victims were living with their families and neighbours.

“The focus started with those who had registered initially. We have done a recall and I had a meeting with my team on Tuesday night. Now I have the figures in terms of what happened,” said Kubayi.

She said the department would go to the National Treasury to request funds because the financial year had ended.

“The province does not have some particular amount, I think about R36 million that is still remaining to be able to respond to those disasters, but we need to request the Treasury to give us permission to use it,” said Kubayi.

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