Parliament fire: Restoration completion date pushed back by two months

The completion date for restoring Parliament’s buildings after they were severely damaged by a fire has been pushed back by two months.

The 2 January 2022 blaze gutted the National Assembly and some parts of the Old Assembly wing leaving MPs without a permanent venue.

Zandile Mafe was arrested in connection to the fire.

The repair and refurbishment of Parliament, which was not insured, is expected to cost an estimated R2 billion and to be completed in 2025.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) was appointed as the project lead to oversee the reconstruction.

Date pushed back

The Joint Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament on Friday was provided with an update on the restoration of the buildings.

Special projects manager Simon Mashigo revealed during the meeting the handing over of Parliament had been moved from September to November 2025.

“We tried to get the completion date to be moved forward so that Parliament’s core business can continue.

“The team is actually investigating the viability of having the chamber and some of the committee rooms being made available by December 2024 and of course, the practical completion being 2025 for the entire work,” Mashigo told the committee.

ALSO READ: Parliament fire: ‘Fully operational’ sprinkler system hadn’t been serviced since 2017

Earlier, Secretary to Parliament, Xolile George said one of the priority areas in the restoration process was creating working spaces for MPs.

George said the construction of 155 offices, on 90 Plein Street in Cape Town, had been completed by the end of June.

“We are running short of about 54 offices for members,” he said.

The secretary said some assets had been recovered.

“Also on the National Assembly, both the old wing and the new wing, there were a number of items of members that were left as part of the rubble so we had to undertake painstakingly focus [not only] on identifying areas for assets that must be salvaged, but also identify any material that would have been of value for members. We have now succeeded in packaging every piece of asset that is there,” he said.

Watch the meeting below:

‘Most crucial stage’

George also said the work of clearing rubble and other items from the Old and New Assembly had taken longer than expected.

“In some of the areas, we had to maintain a delicate balance of mapping out pathways in a building whose structural integrity is not clear,” the secretary said.

Despite this, the work on Parliament has reached its “most crucial stage” of redesigning the buildings.

READ MORE: MPs told about security upgrade failures leading up to Parliament fire

“This week, we convened a multi-disciplinary team of architects and engineers that have received a brief on the concept design considerations around reconstructing Parliament, where we will also be looking at limited public input around what kind of parliament we would like to see.”

Furthermore, George cited a contractor pulling out of the project soon after their appointment as another reason for the slight setbacks.

“We are not off the mark on a number of areas of progress. [This] exciting piece work brings, within itself, the unavoidable inconveniences … [but] we will be able to make sure that the work runs smoothly, albeit, under limited constraints we have imposed around safety.”