Durban — One of the Dakota informal settlement residents, Nonkululeko Sibisi, said she still has not recovered from the incident after she lost all her children’s documents, including child support grants cards when a fire ripped through the informal settlement in Isipingo on Saturday.
About 500 structures were destroyed and many residents were left displaced. Since then NGOs and government officials have provided the displaced residents with food and two temporary shelters in tents nearby.
On Tuesday, Minister of Human Settlements Mmamoloko Kubayi and Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Thembi Nkadimeng assessed the extent of the damage caused and engaged with fire victims and the local leadership on intervention measures.
Kubayi said from April 1, the department has taken over the disaster response in terms of emergency housing and the shelters people will need. Kubayi said the government will need to come together and look at the long-term measures.
Kubayi said the Dakota informal settlement is one of the oldest and has been there for more than 23 years.
“A number of reports from the City state that there have been engagements with some of the community members to be able to move them to another place. Unfortunately, the land that was identified was about 33km away and the community members have raised concerns in terms of the distance, that they would be far from their place of work,” said Kubayi.
She said respective departments will ensure they allocate communities land once they find suitable land that is closer.
Nkadimeng said her department’s role is to ensure there are different work streams of disaster management, one being humanitarian support, which takes care of the replacement of some of the lost amenities, such as school uniforms, and ensures the provision of paperwork from Home Affairs.
“All the teams have been put in place to begin with that process to ensure registration of all the beneficiaries and people who have lost the infrastructure will be taken care of. Humanitarian support goes beyond what could be donated but also (includes) a government social security fund to restore the lives of the affected people,” said Nkadimeng.
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