DA highlights fire faux pas
The Democratic Alliance (DA) said yesterday reports on safety hazards at the Bank of Lisbon building in central Johannesburg, where provincial department offices went up in flames, were not acted on because an occupational health and safety committee was only set up in the second quarter of this year.
The 23-storey building which houses the province’s departments of health, human settlements and cooperative governance caught fire on Wednesday and was extinguished on Thursday night.
One firefighter fell to his death while two others died battling the blaze. The three have been named as Simphiwe Moropane, 28, Mduduzi Ndlovu, 40, and Kathutshelo Muedi, 37.
At least 13 officials from the department of health were hospitalised and treated for smoke inhalation, but have since been discharged.
DA spokesperson on health Jack Bloom said a meeting of the Gauteng legislature’s health committee on Thursday revealed that former Gauteng member of the executive committee (MEC) for health Qedani Mahlangu failed to ensure that there was an occupational health and safety committee for the Bank of Lisbon building.
It took more than a year for incumbent health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa to get it set up only a few months ago, Bloom said.
“An occupational health and safety committee is required to be set up in terms of section 19 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, so the department was in breach of safety legislation for five years, including the whole period when Mahlangu was health MEC, from May 2014 to January 2017,” he added.
The occupational health and safety committee had only two meetings this year and did not receive the recent report from the department of infrastructure development that indicated the building was only 21% compliant with safety standards.
“The lack of a functioning occupational health and safety committee in the past few years can be seen as a major contributor to the tragic fire in which three firefighters died,” said Bloom.
There was a tender last year to relocate health officials from the building, but it was cancelled “for various reasons”.
The Gauteng government yesterday moved to establish a high-level steering committee to centralise the safety function for all buildings accommodating government employees. – ANA
The department was in breach of safety legislation for five years.