Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning

       To effectively respond to the increasing risk of flooding and potential infrastructure collapse due to heavy rains, the Department is committed to providing comprehensive support to municipalities in the Western Cape. Here are the primary ways the Department assists municipalities to address these challenges:

• Collaborative Planning: The Department prioritises coordinated planning efforts among provincial departments and municipalities through the Western Cape Provincial Disaster Management Centre (WCPDMC). Starting in February 2025, the Department requested local municipalities to develop and submit their winter readiness plans. These plans are then compiled and forwarded to the National Disaster Management Centre for further support. The Department has established a Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Plan that outlines strategies for managing various emergencies, including floods. This plan ensures that municipalities can respond swiftly and effectively to incidents as they occur.
• Early Weather Warnings: The Department provides essential early warning systems through the South African Weather Services (SAWS). These systems help disseminate severe weather warnings, ensuring that communities receive timely alerts regarding potential flooding.
• Impact-Based Warnings Communication: The Department developed standard operating procedures to guide the distribution of Impact-Based Severe Weather Warnings. These warnings are shared with municipalities and departments, and we utilise social media platforms to communicate preparedness messages to the community, depending on the severity of the warnings.
• Flood Awareness Education: To empower communities, the Department created and provided flood awareness materials that educate residents on how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from flooding. These materials support municipal awareness initiatives and are supplemented by ongoing social media campaigns.
• Community Resilience Training: The Department instituted a community resilience-building training program designed to help isolated communities learn how to respond to fires and floods while waiting for emergency services. This training aims to increase local capacity for disaster response.
• Partnerships for Enhanced Rescue Capabilities: The Department collaborates with NGOs and volunteer organisations, such as Search and Rescue South Africa (SARZA), to strengthen our rescue capabilities. Additionally, we provide financial support to the National Sea Rescue Institute and Lifesaving Western Cape, which play critical roles in our emergency response efforts.
• Disaster Management Learning Programs: To equip municipal officials with essential Disaster Management skills, the Department has rolled out a Disaster Management Learning Programme consisting of 16 short courses. Recently, we conducted a course focusing on establishing early warning mechanisms, and future courses will further equip officials with the necessary skills for community training and awareness initiatives.
• Financial Support for Local Capacity: We allocated R1 million to district municipalities to fund the appointment of disaster management interns, thereby enhancing local human capacity and promoting youth development. Over the last two years, the department has provided financial support to the Garden Route District (R5 Million) to ensure a response to incidents involving flooding and swift water rescues. An additional amount of R2.5 million is budgeted for the 2025/26 financial year. These collaborative efforts aim to enhance the resilience of communities in the Western Cape.

         The Department has assisted affected municipalities in obtaining financial assistance from the national government to attend to disaster damages from previous incidents. The Department continues to monitor the implementation of the repair projects to ensure the successful and effective reinstatement of affected infrastructure. The Department remains committed and in a state of readiness to provide coordinated support for affected eligible municipalities whose coping capacity has been compromised in obtaining national funding for repairs and rehabilitation in the case of an eventuality.

Preparedness and response to urban flooding is the responsibility of local municipalities; therefore, the City of Cape Town and Municipalities have the necessary flood contingency plans in place, either forming part of their winter readiness planning and/or incorporated into their disaster management plan.

Furthermore, the Department of Local Government, also mobilises provincial resources and infrastructure in support of municipal efforts and facilitates coordination between municipalities, sectors, and national agencies.

Furthermore, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning indicates in their response

• The Directorate: Development Management encourages municipalities to compile Maintenance Management Plans for the rivers within their areas of jurisdiction. Such plans are compiled with input from the relevant specialists, including freshwater specialists. The purpose of the Maintenance Management Plan is to provide the methodology for the continuous maintenance of a river system as well as existing infrastructure.
• Municipalities can implement the Maintenance Management Plans to do regular preventative maintenance, such as the repair of existing infrastructure within its existing footprint, clearing debris from river courses to prevent blockages from forming, removal of alien vegetation, etc. 
• During flood events, municipalities typically make use of the emergency approvals provided for in S30A of the National Environmental Management Act, 107 of 1998, to undertake repairs to riverbanks and existing infrastructure once flood waters have receded sufficiently.
• The S30A emergency approval is mostly limited to the repair of infrastructure in a “like-for-like” fashion. In some instances, the repaired infrastructure is augmented with additional infrastructure such as gabions to help limit the potential for future flood damage.