Cops fail to prevent people from re-occupying Usindiso building amid inquiry into deadly fire
A contract between the city and a private security company to safeguard the Marshalltown building and ensure no one occupies has since lapsed.
Johannesburg emergency services attend to a fire in the Johannesburg CBD on 31 August 2023. Picture: Jacques Nelles/Eyewitness News
JOHANNESBURG - As the commission of inquiry into the Usindiso building fire resumes on Tuesday morning, Eyewitness News understands people have started re-occupying it.
Seventy-seven people died when the five-storey building was gutted by fire five months ago.
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A contract between the city and a private security company to safeguard the Marshalltown building and ensure no one occupies has since lapsed.
Following Sunday’s building fire on 44 Nugget Street that claimed two lives, City of Joburg manager Floyd Brink said the building had been condemned.
Citizens have heard this tune before as the Usindiso building was also condemned. However, Eyewitness News understands people have begun re-occupying it.
Brink told Eyewitness News that the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department and the South African Police Service (SAPS) are now tasked with safeguarding the building.
But they could not answer how they failed to prevent people from entering the building after it was condemned.
“It’s a frustration because it is really something we are working on with SAPS.”
Brink said he could not recall details about the contract between the private security company and the city.
RESIDENTS PAID R1K TO RENT SHACK-LIKE ROOMS AT USINDISO
The commission of inquiry into the fire at the Usindiso building has heard how residents paid R1,100 monthly to rent out shack-like rooms.
This was disclosed by Phakama Chikila - a survivor who testified during proceedings on Monday.
Chikila is among Usindiso residents who said they had no choice but to live in appalling conditions because it was what they could afford.
She lived in the building with her 21-year-old daughter, paying just over a thousand rand a month to a lady who claimed to own the shack-like structures.
Chikila said the lady would go around the block of flats collecting rent from everyone whom she regarded as her tenants.
“The fire staff were trying to stop the fire. They were coming out with dead bodies,” she recounted.
Chikila said she remembered the Usindiso building being a shelter for women back in the late '90s, not knowing it would turn into a hijacked residential property.