Urgent summit to save farmers

A top level summit of business, agriculture and local government was called this week to find ways to minimise the damage of the crippling drought.

Major role players invited to the summit held at Umhlali Country Club included the mayor of Ilembe District municipality, Canegrowers’ Association North Coast area manager, Brendon Nothard, Gledhow Sugar Company vice-chairman Paul de Robillard, Ilembe Chamber of Business CEO Cobus Oelofse and the representatives of various banks.

Issues on the agenda included job losses resulting from early closure of the sugar mills, the impact on suppliers to the agriculture sector and the removal of government red tape to speed up supply of water to Hazelmere Dam.

The banks were included to help explore alternatives to the very real possibility of farmers losing their farms because of the drought.

Meanwhile, it appears that a number of drought interventions announced by the national minister of water and sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, a week ago may be empty promises.

Mokonyane visited Ballito, Tongaat and the Hazelmere Dam on July 15 with a large contingent of politicians, government officials, media, water authorities and community representatives, apparently to get feedback on the first six months of drought intervention.

She announced that the dam would be “cleaned up”, the wall would be raised, silt would be dredged to restore lost storage space and, when the dam dries up, they would transfer up to 50 percent of the area’s water requirement from other sources.

“We may even reclaim the 10 percent storage capacity lost in the 1987 floods,” she said.

However, her spokesman, Mlimandlela Ndamase, backtracked when asked for clarification on some of her statements.

“No definite agreements have been made,” he said this week.

Her statement that the dam could be dredged contradicts a statement made earlier this year by Umgeni Water that it would be impossible to restore Hazelmere’s storage capacity by dredging because of the amount of sand that would need to be trucked away.

Asked for details about dredging and where water would be transferred from, Ndamase said the minister was only “provoking response” and that nothing has been agreed upon, except raising the dam wall.

He said that if the situation deteriorated further, there was enough water in the rest of the province to supply the Dolphin Coast. However he could not say how this would be done.

Minister Mokonyane said she was confident that her department was on top of the drought situation. They would now start planning for the future beyond the drought. She said new technologies had to be embraced and drinking water should no longer be used to flush toilets, do laundry and water gardens.

“Government must sharpen up the way they do things when it comes to water and people must change their habits and all be water wise,” she said.

She said R350 million had been reprioritised for dealing with the drought, not including the Lower Tugela Bulk Water Supply (LTBWS) project.

The LTBWS is due for completion in June 2016 but Ndamase is confident the project will be completed by January 2016.