Donations from KwaZulu-Natal intended for tsunami-hit countries will instead be diverted to poor people in the province, the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) said on Wednesday.
”We have lots of needy people in our own country,” said Acsa spokesperson Chris Jacobs.
He said 80 out of 120 tonnes of aid are still in storage at Durban International airport and donors will meet on Thursday to discuss distribution.
In the meantime, a security guard has been hired to guard the food, clothing, toys and medical supplies, after rumours of theft were confirmed when several tins of bully beef could not be found.
Jacobs said 100 tonnes of food and clothes were collected by Checkers in the province, but only 40 tons of that were sent to Johannesburg International airport after that airport ran out of storage space.
Jacobs said he recently also received 3,7 tonnes of soup from Nestle, which is still in storage. Many other donations were turned away.
Jacobs said the navy and several welfare organisations were called in to help pack the aid.
On the downside, however, members of the public also donated ”scrap that you can’t use”, and six bakkie-loads of goods were ”taken to the dump”.
He said sorting out and boxing the donations was a ”logistical nightmare” and that many shoes were broken, trousers had no zips and there were holes in the clothes.
They also put rubber bands around pairs of shoes after going through hundreds of shoes in order to find matching pairs. Jacobs said the aid will be distributed in KwaZulu-Natal within the next three weeks. — Sapa