‘All hands on deck’: Ramaphosa postpones Middle East trip amid KZN floods

President Cyril Ramaphosa has postponed his visit to the Middle-East in order to focus on government’s intervention in the flood-hit KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).

Ramaphosa was scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, according to the Presidency.

“The postponement allows the president to continue to meet with ministers on the situation in the flood-ravaged province and to assess how the different spheres of government, in partnership with civil society organisations and communities, are addressing the crisis,” the department said in a statement.

Floodwaters have hit parts of KZN ripping apart roads, destroying hospitals and sweeping away homes and those trapped inside.

The KZN government, on Saturday said, the death toll rose to 398 while 27 people were reported still missing.

More than 40,000 people have been affected by the flooding.

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At least 58 healthcare facilities in KZN have also been affected by the floods – with most buildings suffering damage to their roof, floors and fencing.

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was deployed to the province this week,

In light of the recent incident events, the president said government was pulling out all the stops to deal with the situation in the province to support residents as well as affected businesses.

“The loss of nearly 400 lives and thousands of homes, as well as the economic impact and the destruction of infrastructure, calls for all hands on deck.

“As government, we are standing by the people of KwaZulu-Natal through the provision of social and material support to thousands of households and a vast number of businesses that have been affected by this catastrophe,” he said.

On Friday, Ramaphosa conceded that government needed to prepare better for natural disasters.

“We also need to deal more with better preparedness for disasters, particularly climate change-driven disasters as well as just the town planning because people have built in very dangerous areas of the topography of [KZN] and we need to be more careful,” he said while speaking to the media outside a church in Mpumalanga.

The president said government will have to “work day and night” until everything is restored in the province, but this will “take us some time and there may well be some delays in terms of other infrastructure”.

He did, however, indicate that R1 billion has been allocated to KZN as emergency relief as government continues to assess the damage caused by the floods.

According to Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, the relief funds will be available next Tuesday and will be split to different departments of the KZN government.

READ MORE: How government plans to respond to KZN floods

Assessments on the total cost of the flood damage is still being carried out by disaster management teams.

KZN premier Sihle Zikalala previosuly said the damage will “definitely run into billions of rands”.

The national Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) has declared KZN as a provincial disaster area.

This is after the magnitude and severity of the impact of the floods in various parts of the province was assessed.

The head of the national disaster management centre, Dr Mmaphaka Tau, gazetted the declaration on Wednesday afternoon.

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