Almost four months after the Khampepe Commission released a damning report on the role Johannesburg authorities played in the deadly blaze in the city centre that killed 76 people, the city has yet to respond.
But City of Johannesburg COO Tshepo Makola told the Sunday Times this week that its “bad buildings strategy” was “80-90% complete”.
The biggest challenge remains finding alternative accommodation for the thousands of people living in abandoned and hijacked buildings in the city centre.
“It will take a public-private partnership to be successful,” Makola said. “To give you an example, Busa (Business Unity SA) is interested and we are meeting them in September to discuss the way forward in this inner city partnership.
“We are looking hard at the legal ways of expropriating failed buildings. We will probably have to take over these affected buildings, and in the cases where there are no owners we will have to hand over these buildings to the public sector if we cannot afford to take and manage them ourselves.
“Our teams are hard at work identifying which buildings we can refresh and rescue ourselves and which we will need government or private sector help on.”
On August 31 last year a fire broke out in the historic Usindiso building in Marshalltown in Johannesburg, killing 76 residents and leaving many injured.
Most of those who survived were left homeless. In September Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi established a commission of inquiry, headed by retired judge Sisi Khampepe, to investigate the circumstances that led to the disaster.
The commission divided its focus into two parts: first examining who was responsible for the tragedy and second focusing on the issue of hijacked and abandoned buildings in the inner city.
A report on part 1 was released at the end of April. It found the building:
- Was never zoned for residential purposes and at the time of the deadly blaze had a high prevalence of crime;
- Had been abandoned by the City of Johannesburg and the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) at least since 2019;
- Had been vandalised by the removal and sale for cash of the steel reinforcement material supporting the columns, pillars and slabs. The COJ and JPC never attended to repairs and maintenance of the building;
- Showed signs of disrepair and danger to life and property and became liable to be demolished.
It also found the city had failed to act on the contravention of several public health bylaws including accumulation of waste, unhygienic and unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and insufficient supply of potable water.
Khampepe recommended the city consider putting up a plaque in memory of those who died and said “the process for demolishing the Usindiso building must be seen to its full and final implementation”.
The report said: “The mayor should consider the position of the MMC for the department of human settlements and public safety, whose political responsibility or lack of oversight conduced to bring about the disaster that was Usindiso and that the accounting officers of the city's entities, namely, the JPC, Johannesburg Water, City Power, and Pikitup, must be subjected to disciplinary processes where there is evidence of the contraventions of their duties, which, if they had been performed, would have avoided the Usindiso building tragedy.”
The second phase of the commission has been slowed by various logistical issues.
Makola who took up the position of COO last December, said: “After seeing (part one of) the report, we started phase two by doing in loco inspections on other captured buildings. We are about to complete this phase and it appears that we will have to move the people living in these buildings. To accomplish this we will have to work closely with other stakeholders like the department of human settlements.
“The change in mayors put us back two weeks, but we are working hard to win back lost time. We are working through the report and while we are in agreement on a lot of the issues pointed out, there are some we do not agree with,” Makola said.
“With Usindiso one department and individuals cannot be singled out. Our recommendations will now go to the mayoral committee and then to the council before we take further action.
“We are also on the steering committee of the provincial programme for the revitalising of CBDs. We know our priorities in the housing sphere to be student housing, affordable housing and social housing.
“We are working with the Treasury and other government departments. For now, we are trying to do the work in the background with as little noise as possible, but the public can expect a press conference soon where we will be discussing a lot more of the finer details.”
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