On behalf of the Provincial Government and the people of KwaZulu-Natal, we extend a hearty welcome to Your Excellencies, the Ambassadors of our SADC Region to our beautiful province.

We can state without any fear of ambiguity that KwaZulu-Natal is the home to all citizens of the world.

We carry and embody the indestructible spirit of the indigenous communities of South Africa, and Africa as a whole, and the many international communities that made our shores their home.

We pride ourselves to have been the home of Mahatma Gandhi, whom the street in which this building we are gathered in today was named after.

Mahatma Gandhi is the theatre of struggle where he refined Satyagraha or the passive resistance movement which made a huge impact on Dr Martin Luther King Jnr in the United States of America and the leaders of the ANC like Dr John Langalibalele Dube, Chief Albert Luthuli, and Nelson Mandela who incidentally cast his first, historic vote here in Durban in 1994.

Despite the battering from the storms we still live in a beautiful province, and we thank the resilience of our people.

As we gather here today, many parts in our province are a construction site. We are rebuilding roads, bridges and key infrastructure that was damaged.

Yes, the scars and the pain are still visible, and we are still reeling from the 461 lives that we lost and the 70 fellow citizens who are still missing.

Many of our families have not yet found closure, and the merciless flood events of April and May 2022 are still fresh in our memories.

We are grateful today for this visit by our Esteemed Excellencies from our neighbouring countries in the SADC Region coming to lend a hand and offer support to the people of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa. Your gesture is received with great appreciation on behalf of the needy citizens of our province.

Your interventions will go a long way in reducing the impact of the disaster in the lives of our communities.

It is often said that “a friend in your hour of need is a friend indeed”. Your initiatives today are giving a practical meaning to the friendship that exist between our countries which stretches in a number of areas.

This is African solidarity in practice, and we have no doubt that your help will lighten the burden on the shoulders of our flood victims.

You are at this venue which is a temporary emergency accommodation we have used to house flood victims who lost everything they had worked for.

Most of them were initially accommodated in about 135 mass care centres such as halls, churches and other government buildings.

We have had to be innovative as government and to think out of the box. We have looked for an opportunity in a difficult crisis, and today we have settled them here whilst we continue to find permanent solutions where we will be rebuilding their homes.

We have done extensive work to restore basic services such as water, electricity, sanitation and waste removal.

You may read about some of the challenges we still face in the media, but what they will not tell is the exceptional record of delivery where in a short space of time, we have rebuilt infrastructure that was completely washed away in areas like uThongathi, Molweni, Transnet and the South Durban Basin.

Even though our province is going through this time of difficulty, however, our resolve to be the gateway to the African continent remains undeterred. We will rise from this devastation with the support of partners.

Your Excellencies, please convey our deep gratitude to your governments and the people of your countries.

We also wish to express our deep appreciation to the SADC Secretariat for affording us the honour of your visit at this time.

Your presence today reminds us that we are never alone and that we will always be assured of the deep roots of friendship which binds us all together.

Your solidarity and the humanitarian aid serve to further soften the blows, heals our bruises and warms the hearts of all the people of KwaZulu-Natal.

We are indebted to you and cannot thank you enough for this gesture.

We are united in building a better Africa and a better world.

I thank you.