EFF donates R500K, food parcels to church housing KZN flood victims

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has donated R500,000 and food parcels to a church in KwaZulu-Natal that has been housing those who lost their homes.

The devastating floods have wreaked havoc in KwaZulu-Natal, with 435 confirmed dead, while others are still missing.

The EFF visited the province on Thursday and donated blankets and food parcels to the church, and also promised to bring mattresses for the victims.

The party said it would deposit the R500,000 directly to the church and not to the government to avoid theft.

“We are calling for more South Africans to donate to the church, to donate to NGOs, and all the people who are helping our people here in KZN,” said Malema.

“We’re going to give them some food parcels and blankets, we’ll make sure the mattresses (about 150). You must give us your account number, we’ll give you R500,000 for the soup kitchen so you can feed them until we find a solution. Thank you for helping our people. We really want to thank the church, we’re also just trying to help. It’s a good thing, that’s what we’re known for – taking care of each other and practising Ubuntu. This is Ubuntu in action.

ALSO READ: KZN flood death toll revised down to 435, some bodies found to have bullet wounds

“We don’t care whether you’re a Malawian or Zimbabwean or Zulu, you are all our brothers and sisters and you are all in need of help and that help must come to all of you irrespective of your nationality. Your leaders said to me, many of you lost your documents there. I asked if Home Affairs came to the church to help people apply for more papers, they’ve never been here. All they do is say ‘we’re declaring a national disaster’ so that they can steal the money. But if you go where a bridge has collapsed, they’re all there because a tender is going to come out to repair the bridge. They’re always where there is money, not where our people are.”

Home Affairs enhanced emergency services to be activated

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Njabulo Nzuza will on Friday visit two of the emergency relief sites that have been set up by the Municipality to activate Home Affairs enhanced emergency services.

“The Department of Home Affairs is ready to assist with the replacement of documents – at no cost to the communities. It will be replacing birth certificates and IDs of people affected by the disaster and also issue out temporary identity certificates. People will be allowed to apply and collect documents from mobile trucks. This service is available only to people who have lost their documents during the disaster. Any person who lost their documents at another time will not be covered by this intervention,” said the department in a statement.

Local councillors will verify the names of people supplied to the Disaster Management Operations Centre, and after approvals, the lists will be forwarded to Home Affairs for processing.

Services to some of these communities commenced earlier on Thursday.

“Home affairs is joining the government effort to alleviate the impact of the disaster. Without enabling documents, people cannot begin to rebuild their lives,” Nzuza said.

The department said it would take all the necessary steps to ensure corruption is avoided during the intervention.