It's time to return to infrastructure basics

Mitigating the effects of climate-related disasters

- ZWELI MKHIZE

A RECENT oversight visit to flood-ravaged communities in Limpopo and Mpumalanga has exposed a stark and urgent reality - climate-driven disasters will continue to inflict suffering, loss of life and economic hardship unless the fundamentals of municipal infrastructure across provinces are restored and prioritised.

On the first day of our oversight visit, we found a single mother of three on the patch of land where her house once stood. Her face was tear-stained as her children huddled around her. Clearly overwhelmed, she struggled to convey the impact of the floods on her family, yet the devastation in Matsakali village, in the Collins Chabane district in Limpopo, was everywhere around her. Her family lost everything. The water-soaked mattresses were among the last of their things she had to burn. They could not be used again.

This scene of devastation was just one of many our joint oversight delegation witnessed across districts in Limpopo and Mpumalanga during the first week of February this year. These oversight visits will also include other disaster-affected provinces in the coming months. For committee members, the impact of climate-related disasters is no longer theoretical and abstract. The delegation saw washed-away roads and bridges that had buckled under the sheer force of floodwaters. We saw breached stormwater systems and some communities cut off from critical services, such as clinics and schools, following the extreme weather. A day after we visited Matsakali village, the mayors of the Collins Chabane Local Municipality and the Vhembe District Municipality, under our direction, returned to the village to provide food parcels and other necessities.