SA not ‘disaster-ready’: Joburg fire exposes SA’s shortcomings

Marred by bad management and corruption, South Africa’s state of readiness for major disasters has been found wanting – and Thursday’s Johannesburg building fire is yet another example of this.

More than 70 people lost their lives when a massive fire tore through a multistorey building in the CBD reportedly occupied by migrants.

It is understood that more than 200 people were living in the building which was gutted by the blaze.

This incident, one of many, raises questions about the government’s disaster preparedness, response and recovery at provincial and local levels, along with issues of poor firefighting capacity in metros and a shortage of rescue vehicles around the country.

Earlier last month, it was reported that the City of Tshwane in Gauteng and Buffalo City metro in the Eastern Cape were operating with fewer than half the number of fire engines needed, while the City of Joburg fleet had been struggling and did not have enough fire trucks to service its six million residents.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ekurhuleni recently revealed that only 31 out of 135 fire engines were operational there.

“This means that over 77% of the city’s fire engine fleet is out of service. This accounts for 1-2 fire engines per fire station,” it said.

Health expert and private practitioner Dr Angelique Coetzee said in terms of the overall state of readiness in this country for big disasters, South Africa was nowhere near being prepared.

Coetzee said there were not enough public sector ambulances and trained paramedics for any type of disaster.

“You must be ready, whether it is floods, fire or mass shootings – we need to be ready for that,” she said.

“In the case of what happened two days ago (the building fire), there were not even enough firefighters. They had to bring in the private sector to help which was good as it is a public-private partnership. But the fact is there were not enough firefighters from the city itself.

“If what happened (on Thursday) happened in a place like the Free State, then what readiness would the private sector there have to assist them? So, Gauteng is lucky that there are a lot of private institutions to assist, but overall it is not enough.”

Coetzee said in many incidences there had been ample warning, but government “tends to look the other way”.

“When the floods in KZN happened, they were also warned about the temperature changes and massive rain. Even with this situation now, the buildings are not safe but we are never ready and we never learn,” she said.

“It does not matter how many times we have these disasters, we are still not ready. And that is not because the people are not willing. It is a failing of the system.

“We are not going to be ready even in the future because there’s a lack of political will to fix this.” She said people who were at the forefront were also affected.

“They have good intentions but because of the system, they are set up for failure. The buck stops with the president.”

University of North-West political analyst Prof André Duvenhage said South Africa was a failed state which could not act according to the prescripts of its constitution and could not look after the well-being of its citizens.

“What we are looking at is extended institutional, social, economic and political decay in the country. If you want to look at our macro scenario, it’s not a scenario of development that is dominant, but a scenario of decay,” he said

“There are pockets of development which we cannot ignore, but it is sometimes selective and within the private domain. In the areas where the state is active, they cannot fulfil the mandate.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa had said that the blaze was “a wake-up call” to address an inner-city housing crisis.

Duvenhage said the fire was a serious incident which was caused by bad management.

“I can give him (Ramaphosa) at least 10 other wake-up calls which already happened over the past decade. The list is long. What we have in this country is a comprehensive political, economic and social crisis and the government is not prepared to take on this crisis and deal with it,” he said.

“It is a wake-up call, but for any person who says they could not predict this, they are living outside of South Africa.”