Makana municipality has asked provincial government for assistance to get 250 temporary structures for people who lost their homes last month during the heavy rains.
Municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma said on Friday that they have recently sent a report to the province asking for assistance. “We have been informed by our councillors that [the number of]people who needed these structures were 127 and we are hoping to get a response soon from the province,” Boma said.
A request for an estimated 250 structures was sent before ward councillors had made an actual head count of the people needing temporary shelter.
Boma said the people who had suffered the most were those who lived in mud structures and informal settlements. “Most beneficiaries will be those who lived in mud structures,” Boma said.
An advert was also issued calling for local contractors to submit profiles for the purposes of assisting with the fixing of roads around Makana. “Today [Friday] is the last day for submissions, we will look at the profiles and dissect those contractors into sectors and allocate contracts,” Boma said, adding, “but we will depend on the profiles themselves because we want quality output and we are going to monitor the construction”.
Zolani informal settlement resident Nomakhaya Qomfo said on Friday that they had not yet heard any news from the municipality. “The situation is still the same, we have not heard anything from our ward councillor so we are still waiting,” she said.
The municipality had earlier estimated the damage to be approximately R158 million. Last month technical and infrastructure services director Thembinkosi Myalato said they had requested council to approve a virement from the Municipal Infrastructure Grant budget to fix the emergency areas around Makana.
