People must come before profits

South Africans – when we think about it (which we seldom do) – consider themselves fortunate not to often be the victims of the forces of capricious nature. We very rarely experience the destruction wrought by earthquakes, hurricanes or tornadoes. So, when a vicious storm does wreak havoc in our lives, we are often stunned because there is a feeling that this sort of thing happens only to other people in other countries.

But the past weekend’s raging hail and wind storm, which battered parts of Johannesburg, brought home the fact that we are just as vulnerable.

However, as people surveyed the destruction and those who lost their houses, cars, and even loved ones, considered their fate, the pain was made much worse by the fact that, seemingly, there was a human hand in some of the damage.

As Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba pointed out – and many others echoed his comments on social media later – brick houses with tile roofs in some places had been destroyed or badly damaged while shacks in nearby informal settlements had withstood the onslaught.

This was, claimed Mashaba, because shoddy workmanship on houses was to blame. The mayor called for a probe into the building standards for some of these houses which, if not of the RDP type, were intended as low-cost housing.

We agree that this should be looked into as a matter of urgency. How is it that the poorer members of our community are expected to put up with standards which are not applicable elsewhere? What sort of new apartheid is this? The apartheid of heartless profit?

We urge Mashaba and his team to not only look into the basic building standards, but also the effectiveness of inspection standards. Something is not right here.

As a society, we need to learn from this. People must come before profits.