“When we look at the harbour in the future, we need to find ways of ensuring that debris does not come in and disrupt the harbour. As things stand, we have 40 ships coming and going and that number continues to grow each day,” Pravin Gordhan said.

The minister said Transnet was able to act in response to consumers’ demand for fuel by utilising the Bluff area. Trucks were permitted to pull through Bluff to access Island View, where the petrochemical services are located.

As part of the EDTEA’s joint flood damage inspection and stakeholder engagement, On 16 April MEC Ravi Pillay and Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams visited Wilson Wharf and other areas around Durban to quantify the devastation caused by the latter floods

Referring to the damage, Minister Ravi Pillay told local television channel Newzroom Afrika it had “exceeded the 10 billion mark at this point”.

“It is very unfortunate because … we are coming back from a very traumatic two and a half years, and we had been building very nicely January, February, March in terms of our tourism numbers,” he said. “We were looking forward to that proverbial bumper Easter, but it was not to be.”

As per the KwaZulu Natal Government communique, The Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) is working on a programme to support businesses affected by floods and work has started to also clean the beaches.