Disaster prevention measures in Ladysmith to cost over R1bn - KZN COGTA

DURBAN - The KwaZulu-Natal Cooperative Governance Department said disaster prevention measures in Ladysmith will cost over a billion rand.

The department’s MEC, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi, visited the flood-stricken areas following a second wave of heavy rains in just two weeks.

Prevention measures include building infrastructure that will prevent dams from flooding the town when the banks burst.

Government authorities said Ladysmith had been prone to weather-related disasters for over 20 years now.

However, the situation keeps getting worse, with many lives lost.

When asked about what the government was doing to fix the dam infrastructure, this is what Cooperative Governance MEC Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi told Eyewitness News: "When we were looking at that, we could feel that we need a huge amount, more than a billion that we need - we are going to discuss these with national and find a way of doing them."

The MEC added she wanted a short-term solution in this regard to begin soon.