The dilapidated Usindiso building in Marshalltown in which 76 people died in a fire last year, is nothing more than a toilet used by the homeless and a refuge for drug dealers.
Homeless people are also helping themselves to anything that can be traded for scrap every day despite Johannesburg metro police car parked outside the building daily.
This is what unfolded when the Sunday Times visited the building.
The stench of human waste is overwhelming, even from outside the building. Barbed wire surrounding the building has been cut away around the door to allow access. Window and door frames and any other metal has been stripped off. “As you can see, the place is a mess,” said Sgcino Mpanza, a former resident who has found home at another property in the Joburg inner city.
“No-one cares if there are people inside or not. Those nyaope boys [drug addicts] come in and do as they wish. It is a sad situation.”
A cleaner who works at a nearby building concurred. “Nyaope boys have been coming into the building since last year. They stripped the metal on the lift shaft and any other thing they could get. “No-one cares what happens in that building now... At night the nyaope boys all go inside to sleep. They start fires inside and do as they please,” she said.
The City of Johannesburg has declared the Usindiso building unsafe and is set for demolition.
Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) spokesperson Xolani Fihla said claims of people entering the building was “a serious one that the JMPD takes with great concern”.
He said: “The JMPD regional commander will address it with the members. Officers deployed in the area have been tasked with conducting high visibility patrols to prevent crime and to ensure no-one enters the building.”
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