Cape Town – Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen has defended national government’s handling of the drought in the Western Cape, saying the government could not heed earlier calls to declare the province a disaster area because “processes” had to be followed.
Briefing Parliament’s portfolio committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs, Van Rooyen said the country remained adversely affected by the drought situation, especially three provinces.
“The Disaster Management Act says it has to affect a number of provinces.
“Why have you not declared a national disaster earlier?
Van Rooyen defended the delay in declaring a national disaster in the three affected provinces.
“We could not be put in a tight corner because some people want to realise their objectives not known to us.
We followed the due processes to deal with this,” the minister said.
Van Rooyen also said the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs would consider declaring the three Cape provinces gripped by drought national disaster areas.
The meeting was to decide on whether to declare the provinces national disaster areas when officials made technical presentations to the task team.
The three of Cape provinces have already declared themselves as disaster areas due to the drought which has left many of their towns running short of water.