With the year hardly started, the Tshwane metro already faces massive unforeseen costs of more than R700m for which it did not bargain.
The severe thunder and hailstorms on 28 November and 1 December caused extensive damage to various areas in the city and about 44 800 households and some 179 200 people were effected.
The roofs of about 3 000 houses were damaged beyond repair. Three teenagers drowned in the ensuing flood and 40 people had to receive treatment for injuries. Some 1 036 people were also displaced. Immediately after the disaster, the mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, declared various areas of Soshanguve, Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville – the areas hardest hit – as disaster areas. All budgeted emergency and disaster funds (R1m) were exhausted in a matter of hours and the metro made a further R5m available from other sources for immediate relief.
Every department of the municipality was deployed up to the hilt in disaster relief and calculations of the cost in doing so immediately after the disaster amounted to more than R100m. However, in the final calculations done in the rehabilitation of the affected areas, it was found to be closer to R703m. In view of the costs, the National Disaster Management Council will be approached for funds.
Following the disaster was the funeral arrangements of former president Nelson Mandela lying in state in Pretoria.
Blessing Manale, spokesperson for the mayor, said that the final costs have not been calculated, but that provisional estimates indicate that it could be anything between R25m and R35m.
“These costs came about with the large number of busses that were made available to transport citizens free of charge from various gathering points to the Union Buildings and the refilling and temporary tarring of roads that are currently under construction to make allowance for the bus rapid transport system,” he said.
As in the case of the storm disaster, the whole of the Tshwane metro’s logistical system was deployed, and many worked overtime. More than 3 000 emergency service personnel were deployed. The Tshwane metro police was deployed throughout the city as well as at Qunu, the final resting place of South Africa’s most iconic leader.
Further costs to the account of the municipality were the setting up of ten public viewing sites, media and marketing, road cordons for the movement of the corpse from 1 Military Hospital to the Union Buildings and the hosting of dignitaries. The costs of these two events will be debated in the forthcoming municipal council meeting on 30 January.
