Tsunami aid 'matches SA capacity'
Richard Mantu
12 January 2005
South Africa's contribution to victims of the tsunami disaster represents a humanitarian effort appropriate to the country's economic standing, says Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi.
South Africa would not attempt to out-pledge other donor countries or engage in any "auctioneering exercise", Mufamadi said, but would ensure that available resources reached the people who needed them most.
The disaster has left over 150 000 people dead in South East Asia and some African countries such as Somalia, Seychelles and Kenya.
Mufamadi was reacting to claims that the government's response to the catastrophe was slow and that too little was pledged for relief.
"What we need to understand is that we make pledges to assist with the humanitarian efforts in those countries", Mufamadi told reporters in Pretoria on Tuesday. "But when we pledge, we should not use this as an auctioneering exercise.
"We are not going
to make pledges with the desire to compete with other countries. We proceed on the premise that we are making a humanitarian pledge in accordance with our country's capacity to contribute toward aid relief."
He added that the government's contributions should not be measured in monetary terms alone, because some of the monetary contributions were made in order to smooth out logistical challenges in flying aid to affected countries.
The minister said the government would spend R4-million in ensuring that relief aid to affected countries was flown out of the country.
Other contributions include co-ordinating relief efforts from different non-governmental organisations, corporate institutions and individuals.
South Africans have dug deep over the past two weeks, raising more than R7-million and pledging more than R10-million through various campaigns to assist tsunami victims.
Source: BuaNews
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