Eastern and Western Cape
DSD
a)
1. The core mandate of the department is to render psychosocial support services through its cadre of professions to victims of disasters. This service continues to be available to those who need it and its availability was communicated at the Provincial Disaster Management Centre meetings where all Heads of Centres of the respective District Municipal Disaster Management Centres are in attendance.
2 The role of DSD in the response to a disaster is to coordinate own services in the form of psycho-social services and access facilitation to humanitarian relief to the affected communities.
In this regard DSD did the following:
The department continues to work collaboratively with all strategic partners and stakeholders to mitigate against the social vulnerabilities heaped upon the poorest of the poor resultant from the flood disaster.
b) The Department’s future social protection plan for vulnerable persons affected by disasters is to continue to work collaboratively with municipalities, community representatives and other stakeholders to identify hot spots for disasters. The whole of society and the whole of government approaches need to be engaged to raise awareness and caution vulnerable groups from illegally erecting informal structures in swamp, wetlands and/or low-lying areas. The Department works with all municipalities and stakeholders to development and implement the annual summer/winter readiness plans.
The Department will continue to establish and monitor the existing humanitarian social relief work-streams in the metro and rural municipalities as part of its preparedness and response mitigation plans.
The department will also continue to provide capacity building and education to internal staff and stakeholders on the DSD Social Relief Plan, Protocols and SOP’s that are in place.
The Department will also continue to provide psycho-social support to the vulnerable individuals affected by the disaster and where appropriate, refer affected and vulnerable individual to our sister departments and relevant stakeholders for material support and other needed services.
SASSA
a)
SASSA provides Social Relief of Distress to any person in need of immediate relief, as per Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004 (Section 13), together with Regulations 11, 16, 17, 18 and 19
The form of relief can be meals, thick foam sponges, blankets, vanity packs, baby pack, school uniforms, and or cash voucher as prescribed and approved by the Agency provided the affected persons meet the qualifying criteria.
The relief provided is on a short-term basis to persons affected by a disaster, declared or undeclared.
Declared disasters:
Undeclared disaster:
The below table depicts the number of people affected by floods in the Eastern and Western Cape and related costs dispersed in the 2023/2024 financial year.
Provinces |
No. of people affected |
Expenditure FY23/24 |
Eastern Cape |
5,317 |
R2,446,125.00 |
Western Cape |
16,611 |
R19,075 581.00 |
TOTAL |
21,928 |
R21, 521,706.00 |
It must be noted the Social Relief of Disaster (SRD) response depends on the availability of funds. Further to that, assistance is discretionary.
b) DSD is in the process of drafting a National Disaster Framework which will incorporate, Disaster Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Rehabilitation processes. DSD is also working with NDMC to finalise the process of Disaster Funding Institutional Arrangement which will assist departments to access funding in the event of a disaster.
This will ensure that DSD has access to the much needed funds during disasters to effectively respond and assist the most vulnerable and poor people in the society.