City fire engines delayed

DESPITE promises t hat Joburg’s fire engine crisis would abate by the end of July, the planned delivery of 29 desperately needed fire engines has been delayed by another four months.

Since 2015 Joburg has been hamstrung in addressing fire emergencies due to a lack of fire engines at the various stations across the metro.

In May an 82-year-old Linden resident, Jeremy Lang, died in his home after it took Emergency Services more than an hour to send a truck to the scene.

This despite living less than 5km from the Roosevelt Park fire station, which according to sources in the area has not had a working fire engine in more than seven months.

DA ward councillor Tim Truluck said during that incident the teams at Roosevelt Park and Randburg had been out on other calls.

The R190-million contract was awarded to Boksburg-based fire-fighting equipment manufacturer Fire Raiders in 2015.

Mayoral committee member for public safety Michael Sun said the contract with Fire Raiders allowed the suppliers to only complete their delivery of all 30 vehicles by the end of October.

The reason none of the trucks could be dispatched, he said, was that certain superstructures of the vehicles were built separately and there were delays in receiving them.

He confirmed the first three to six trucks would be delivered by the end of this month.

However, he said his administration was still deciding which stations would be prioritised to receive the June batch.