Usindiso tragedy: Justice Khampepe urges Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda to consider positions of MMCs Anthea Leitch and Mgcini Tshwaku
|Published
Appropriate action should be taken against Joburg Property Company chief executive Helen Botes; Joburg MMC for human settlements, Anthea Leitch; Joburg public safety MMC, Dr Mgcini Tshwaku for the decay, overcrowding and dilapidation which festered at the City of Johannesburg’s Usindiso Building, where at least 77 people died in an inferno last year.
These are the recommendations of former Constitutional Court judge, Justice Sisi Khampepe, chairperson of the inquiry into the Usindiso building fire.
The recommendations are part of the commission’s part one report which was on Sunday handed over to Premier of Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi.
In the hard-hitting recommendations, the Khampepe commission said City of Joburg must consider erecting a plaque bearing the names of the 77 people who perished in the August inferno.
She said the process of demolishing the doomed Usindiso building must now be seen to its final implementation.
“Since all contraventions of the national acts and by-laws have been established, the city must engage in an independent process to determine who must bear individual responsibility or liability for each of of the contraventions found in our report, and to report any attendant criminal conduct to the relevant authorities for further investigations,” said Khampepe.
“The board of directors of the JPC (Johannesburg Property Company) must consider taking appropriate action against Ms Botes, the chief executive officer of the Johannesburg Property Company for the total disregard of managing the Usindiso building despite knowledge of the disastrous state of affairs since at least 2019.”
The commission said two witness who testified in-camera at the inquiry, confessing to crimes in the building, must be probed further for possible prosecution for multiple murders and attempted murders, arson, the obstruction of justice and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm to the victims where appropriate cases can be made.
She said psycho-social support must be continued, and the Department of Home Affairs should issue identity documents to the residents who lost their papers in the inferno.
“The mayor of Johannesburg (Kabelo Gwamanda) should consider the position of the MMC for the department of human settlement (Leitch); and public safety MMC (Tshwaku) whose political responsibility or lack of oversight conduced to bring about the disaster that was Usindiso.
“The accounting officers of the city’s entities namely the Johannesburg Property Company, Johannesburg Water, City Power, Pikitup must be subjected to disciplinary processes where there is evidence of contraventions of their duties which if they would have been performed, would have prevented the Usindiso building tragedy,” said Khampepe.
As to liability and responsibility, the report finds that the City of Johannesburg and its entities including the Johannesburg Property Company must bear the responsibility in part for what ultimately became the tragedy of August 31 2023.
Khampepe said in the limited time of the commission’s work, there was no sufficient time to drill down to individuals in the various entities who must bear accountability.
The Khampepe-led commission has found that the impact of the fire which started from a murder scene on the ground floor of the building, would have been minimal had City of Joburg complied with its obligations as owner of the building and the municipality.
“The City of Johannesburg and JPC never attended to repairs and maintenance of the building. The Usindiso building showed signs of disrepair and danger to life and property. It became liable to demolished with the section of 12 of the Building Regulations and the Building Standards Act of 1977,” said Khampepe.
The report also finds that there was evidence of contravention of the city by-laws by the City of Johannesburg.
“For instance, the absence of doors swinging in the direction of escape routes due to being welded together and the blocking of passage ways, escape routes and stairways is evidence of contravention of Section 13 of the emergency services by-laws,” she said.
“The commission also found that firefighting connections in the hijacked building which housed thousands of people were being used as sources of water for domestic use due to the disconnection of portable water supply, which is a contravention of water by-laws in the city.
“The accumulation of waste, the presence of unhygienic and unsanitary conditions, the existence of overcrowding and the occupation of the building without a sufficient supply of portable water, coupled with the City of Joburg’s failure to prevent, eliminate to remove such health hazards and nuisances is evidence of contraventions of Section 5, 6, 7 and 38 of the public health by-laws,” said Khampepe.
She added the massive overcrowding in the building was a blatant breach of the national building regulations.
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