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The country has experienced heavy rain in recent months which resulted in unfortunate incidents of flooding, says the spokesperson of the department, Sputnik Ratau. He adds that they have witnessed the misery and suffering of communities whose households were destroyed or washed away, and there was also a loss of lives due to the floods. This added more sorrow to most of the vulnerable communities who are still battling to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, says Ratau.

He mentions that affected communities also include informal settlements which are desperately looking for shelter. Even with that in mind, it is wrong for people to erect shelters or build structures in areas that the municipality has demarcated or reserved to discharge the base flood, adds Ratau.

“Building on land prone to flooding or meant to mitigate such a flood, is high-risk because climate-related disasters are incidents that happen inadvertently. Therefore, it is of importance that we look back at what happened during the flooding and refrain from committing the same mistakes, of illegally building structures on either the flood base or dam weirs,” says Ratau.

He concludes by saying that residents in these flood-prone areas are among the poorest and most vulnerable. It is therefore advisable for people who want to erect settlement structures, to first check with their municipalities regarding the legality or feasibility of the land they want to occupy, before settling there.

OFM News/Lee Simmons