Drought's fangs sink in deeper

2003-12-30 21:06

Marietie Louw

Pretoria - The crippling drought affecting much of South Africa is getting worse each day, says Toffee Mokethi, head of prevention and support at the national disaster management centre.

She says underground water levels are dropping daily and some dams will be bone-dry by the end of January.

Mokgethi sketched a bleak picture and said: "We need rain, rain and more rain."

The centre is carrying out a needs assessment in conjunction with the departments of provincial and local government, agriculture, water works and social services.

Mokgethi said the assessment was being done to help farmers and communities.

"We must look at how we can save lives and how we can build up food provisions," she said.

She said the government already had provided aid to Limpopo in the past few months. Boreholes had been drilled and rehabilitated to make use of subterranean water.

But, she said, in some places the underground water table was so low that even boreholes did not help.

According to her, the rain that fell in large parts of the country on Christmas Day and on following days had done little to relieve the drought.

Bully Botma, chairman of Grain SA, also said the recent rains had not helped.

He said that some parts of the North West, the Free State and Mpumalanga, where summer grain crops were planted, had not seen any rain.

As a result, the national department of agriculture had predicted a 25% lower grain harvest next year.

Harvest expectations for sunflowers and sorghum also were lower. Sugar-cane crops already had been severely affected.

Mokgethi said the needs assessment would be complete by the end of next week.

"Only then will we be able to say how much help is needed and how each province will be helped."

- Beeld