Bobby Peek, director of non-profit environmental justice organisation Groundwork SA, told Business Day that local and provincial government must provide improved settlements and better services so storm waters don’t flood homes.
“It’s about building back stronger settlements for the poor. That’s what we call part of our just transition. As President Cyril Ramaphosa has so often said, we are leaving no-one behind, because we have a just transition. People think that a just transition is only about energy and moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy. No, a just transition is about society [progressing] in all its different aspects.” This will also include health services, considering that more than 80 hospitals and clinics were damaged in the recent floods.
He said that, in the wake of the national disaster, funding to rebuild the province must be properly allocated.
“The entire Durban water and sanitation infrastructure needs to be retrofitted. And you can’t do it in one year. We need an independent set of civil engineers to look at the broader city and decide, based upon the geology and people’s vulnerability, what do you tackle urgently now and what do you tackle as a five- to 10-year process.”
Those governing our province must be honest with the public purse and tenders for the rebuild must go to those who can do the job.
— S’bu Zikode, head of Abahlali baseMjondolo
Peek said the government cannot do everything by itself and needed the help of NGOs, community activists and lobbyists.
Thousands dead
Floods triggered by climate change have decimated the global south, including SA, Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar, leaving thousands dead. While SA is partly responsible for its coal use, climate experts believe the global North needs to take greater responsibility.
“In the global scheme, it’s the North that’s polluted and plundered and colonised the South to be able to get rich and burn all those fossil fuels,” S’bu Zikode, head of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a land and housing organisation for the poor, told Business Day. “Now the world is facing loss and damage. How do northern governments start paying the climate debt and the environmental and ecological debt that they owe the South?”
Zikode spoke of how he had witnessed the suffering of those in informal settlements. Thousands of families have lost everything, including loved ones, particularly in Durban’s 600 informal settlements.
“The priority is for government to address the housing backlog and revisit the land question and not eye well-located land to impress business or their cadres. Those governing our province must be honest with the public purse and tenders, for the rebuild must go to those who can do the job,” said Zikode.
“eThekwini has a huge housing backlog of millions, and out of desperation the poor, who come to the city for work and healthcare and education, are forced to build their homes on vacant land along riverbanks and floodplains.”
He said that while there are those who cannot afford food, let alone afford to build a wall, there were others who, if the government provided serviced sites, could afford to build their homes.
An opportunity for KZN
Durban environmental lobbyist Desmond D’Sa said that while tragic, the disaster presented an opportunity for the province — its people and the government — to unite and find lasting solutions to this global catastrophe. “This is not a tick-box exercise, but a humanitarian crisis that requires government working with the affected communities,” he said.
Last week, the Climate Justice Charter (CJC) movement made calls for Ramaphosa, KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala and other politicians to be charged with culpable homicide after the floods.
The activists alleged that the government had failed to take the climate crisis seriously and must be held accountable for its dereliction of duty.
“The SA government has been part of the UN-COP and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process since the early 1990s. Almost three decades later, not much has happened to protect SA from the worsening climate crisis,” the activists said.
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