Repeated natural disasters and poor infrastructure have exposed the Eastern Cape’s failure to protect its most vulnerable communities.
Sadly, it’s no surprise to hear that in one of the worst-run provinces in the country – the Eastern Cape – even the premier admits that, despite being regularly hit by natural disasters, they don’t have adequate resources to respond in times of emergency.
Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane admitted to SABC News that “when things like this happen, we are always found wanting”.
How, premier, in what you yourself describe as a “disaster-prone” province, has better provision not been made for not only search and rescue but in disaster prevention as a whole?
Judging by some of the pictures of flooded settlements, it is clear that people are being allowed to build in potentially dangerous areas, like river flood plains and steep hillsides.
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If there are insufficient resources, where are your actual budgets being spent? Do we even really need to ask that question, given the Eastern Cape’s poor record on service delivery and infrastructure development?
However, it would be unfair to apportion all the blame on Mabuyane and the province’s civil servants.
The Eastern Cape needs help – both money and expertise – and that is where the national government could, and should, step in.
We can’t continue to see schoolchildren drowning in flood waters.
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