Durban — EThekwini Municipal Public Accounts Committee (Mpac) has called on the City management to speedily intervene in the privately-owned hijacked buildings to avoid a repeat of the Joburg tragedy where more than 70 people died in a fire.
Reacting to the tragedy, Mpac chairperson Thami Xuma said after the Joburg disaster on Thursday he went back to the planning and development committee and asked it to provide him with a list of the City’s buildings that were hijacked if there were still any.
Xuma said he had been sitting on the planning and development unit about what it was doing with the hijacked buildings and was assured that there was no municipality building that was still hijacked except the one that was flattened earlier last month.
He said the unit told him that there were still privately-owned buildings that were still hijacked.
Xuma said he had demanded that he be provided with the list of all hijacked buildings to assess whether the City was still getting rates for them and if not, let the City expropriate those buildings and give them to Human Settlements for allocation to people waiting for RDP houses.
“We should be proactive and use the Joburg disaster as yardstick to ensure that such disasters do not hit us unprepared. We have a housing backlog here in the city for people waiting to be provided with houses so we need to move quickly and find the original owners of the hijacked buildings or expropriate them and hand them over to needy people,” said Xuma.
He said he was aware that there were still several abandoned government buildings in and around the City and urged the relevant authorities to hand them over to the city before they get hijacked as well.
In a statement, eThekwini said there were 88 identified problematic buildings in the City’s database, but the number was not static as buildings were inspected continuously and subsequently removed once success had been declared.
The City added that there were 23 hijacked buildings where owners had gained control through problem-building intervention, but the City was intervening through bad building by-laws.
“According to the bad buildings by-law, with regard to hijacked buildings, the property owner will be placed on terms and required to evacuate the building, secure and/or seal the property against any unauthorised re-entry of any persons, and, to remedy and turn around the problem building.
“Should the owner not comply with the conditions/orders imposed, a court order will be sought for evacuation, demolition and/or remediation by the owner failing which the municipality will carry out such works and recover the costs from the owner,” the City said.
Survivors of the Johannesburg fire said they were left destitute.
Simphiwe Ngcobo, a hawker and resident of the building, lost her two-year-old child in the blaze, and her five-year-old is fighting for her life in hospital.
“As I am sitting like this, I have lost everything. I don’t know where I will go with my child, who is still in the hospital,” said Ngcobo.
Luyanda Mbhele, a young person from KZN who had relocated to Johannesburg over a year ago in the hope of a job and study opportunities said all his hopes of finding a job had literally gone up in smoke after losing his matric certificate, ID and clothes.
While addressing the media on Thursday evening, Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda, who was with city manager Floyd Brink, said the city was making strides dealing with the illegal occupation of buildings which were the root cause of Thursday’s calamity.
This is after it was revealed that Usindiso Shelter for Women and Children, the building where scores of innocent people lost their lives operated as a shelter for abused women and children until it was neglected by the City, resulting in the building falling into disrepair and what the City refers to as its “hijacking”.
Gwamanda said rescue operations which were ongoing have retrieved 74 dead bodies in the aftermath of the blaze.
He said of these, 24 were female, 40 were male and 10 were undetermined gender, due to the severity of the burns while a total of 12 were young children with the youngest being 18-months-old.
“This current administration is taking a more prudent approach; we are not going there with group force; we are trying to apply a maximum-sensitive strategy,” he said.
He sent condolences to those who have lost their loved ones and personal belongings in the fire.
“We share the pain of those who have suffered great injury.
“We as the executive will be visiting the victims at the various hospitals.
“We will offer our messages of support and check on the extent of the injuries the victims have suffered. We further want to acknowledge the bravery of our EMS Department to try and rescue and salvage the situation,” the mayor said.
Gwamanda said that he would be meeting swiftly with the Gauteng provincial government and national government leaders.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was expected to visit the city centre on Thursday evening, also sent his well wishes to those affected by the fire.
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