S. African gov't assisting drought-stricken areas: official

Several South African government departments are now working together to assist the people in the eight provinces affected by a persistent drought, Ken Terry, Head of the Disaster Management Centre, said on Saturday.

"These provinces cannot cope with the drought on their own and different government departments have intervened and are working to help the people. We are coping well and intervening in different provinces depending on the severity of the problem," Terry told Xinhua.

He was speaking after the government declared three more provinces as disaster areas, bringing to eight the number of provinces that have been declared disaster areas. Of the country's nine provinces, only Gauteng is not on the list.

South Africa is experiencing the worst drought in decades, with low rainfall and high temperatures which have led to a reduction in crop production.

The impact of adverse weather continued to plague agriculture as the industry recorded its fifth consecutive quarter of negative growth. Agricultural production has fallen by 14 percent since the fourth quarter of 2014, according to Statistics South Africa.

Terry said that the joint anti-drought efforts mainly involve the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Department of Water and Sanitation.

The government has established an inter-ministerial team to coordinate the assistance to the areas affected by the drought, he said.

"We have been sinking boreholes through out the country and in other areas, we are restricting the use of water. We have also distributed water in other areas. The weather service has said the El Nino phenomena is dissipating and moved out completely and we are moving to our normal environment," Terry said.

In winter there usually is no rain but they expect better rain in spring and the situation to return to normal, he said.

Terry could not say how many people have been affected and how much is required to help the affected people. He however stated that even when the drought ends it will take some time to return to normalcy because dams will need time to fill up and the effect of El Nino will continue for some time.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat has set up a team to coordinate a regional response to the impacts of the El-Niño in its affected member states.

On May 26, the SADC said about 27 million people, which is nine percent of the SADC's 293 million population, are already affected by the drought and the figure is likely to rise. Enditem