The South African government has strongly denied that it was slow in reacting to the tsunami disaster in South-East Asia.
Opposition parties and the public have criticised the government for taking too long to help victims of the disaster, comparing it with civil society organisations that sprang into action when the extent of the devastation became apparent.
Xolani Xundu, spokesperson for Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, told the Mail & Guardian this week that criticism has been ill-informed and ignorant of how governments interact.
The government this week announced that, in partnership with Airserv International, it is sending a cargo aircraft with two helicopters to help with the distribution of emergency supplies in the Maldives and Indonesia. The 60-day operation will cost South Africa about R4-million, and Airserv has undertaken to match every rand spent by the government, Xundu said. This is the first part of the monetary contribution the government plans to spend in the tsunami-struck areas.
”Instead of sending water to these areas, the government has now decided to transport a mobile water purification plant with the cargo aircraft. It will also carry with it five tons of urgently required relief supplies,” he said.
Many South Africans known to have been in the area have been located. However, by Thursday 740 of them were still unaccounted for, nine were confirmed dead and six others presumed killed.
The Democratic Alliance said last week that ”the biggest natural disaster to hit the world during our lifetimes had been met with virtual silence” from the South African government. There has been very little official help to relieve the suffering of those affected by the tsunami, the DA said — apart from a crisis centre in Pretoria, run by the Department of Foreign Affairs, that will be coordinating information about South Africans in tsunami-affected areas.
On radio stations and in letters to newspaper editors, the government has been slammed for donating R10-million to Haiti’s celebration of 200 years of independence, but reacting slowly to the disaster in the sub-continent.
Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, told the M&G that the responses of governments throughout the world were indicative of the bureaucracy that hampers government action. ”Under the circumstances, I think our government did all it could,” she said.
Xundu said: ”The disaster took place on [December] 26 and Minister Mufamadi called an emergency meeting for all ministers who make up the inter-ministerial committee on disaster management. All the ministers who were on leave were brought back.”
The committee is made up of the ministers of health (Manto Tshabalala-Msimang), foreign affairs (Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma), social development (Zola Skweyiya), provincial and local government (Mufamadi) and water and forestry affairs (Buyelwa Sonjica).
On Thursday Tshabalala-Msimang and Sonjica attended the United Nations donor conference discussing ways to coordinate aid to affected countries.
Xundu says the South African relief effort will be channelled through the local Red Cross Society, which will in turn pass it on to its international body.
”I think we are miles ahead with our coordination of our relief aid,” Xundu said, ”including in the various parts of Africa, hard hit by the tsunami.”
Foreign government spin doctors have been hard at work defending their principals’ actions or inactions in the face of the disaster. In Britain opposition leaders have criticised Prime Minister Tony Blair for not returning from his holiday in Egypt to help in the tsunami response. Blair returned home only after New Year following what the British government called a ”working holiday”.
Reuters reported this week that Scandinavians are fuming at their governments’ initially sluggish response to Asia’s tsunami disaster — especially because many Scandinavians were holidaying in the areas where the tsunami struck.
Insurance companies’ compassionate stance
Families of South Africans missing as a consequence of the tsunami disaster will not necessarily need a death certificate when claiming insurance benefits.
Sanlam spokesperson Frans van Rensburg said his company will consider each case on its merits. ”We will not necessarily insist on the death certificate,” he said.
Old Mutual spokesperson Stephen Bowey told the Mail & Guardian it normally takes two to three days to process a life insurance claim after the company receives the death certificate. However, ”where there is no body and therefore no possibility of a death certificate being issued, as may be the case with victims of the tsunami, the alternative is for a court to make an order that the person is presumed to be dead”.
Once the court has declared a person dead, then an insurance claim may be entered.
Liberty Life’s legal head, Leanne Dewey told Sapa ”it is not too early to institute a claim but [the company] will need time to ensure that all requirements are met and that there are no doubts that the victim is possibly still alive”. The company will examine each case on its merits.
”It’s not like the Helderberg plane crash where we paid out within 48 hours,” Sapa reported Dewey as saying.