2023 will never be easily forgotten by the residents of the City of Johannesburg because of the tragedies that saw many people losing their lives, infrastructure damaged and more buildings around the city were hijacked by foreign nationals.
JOHANNESBURG TRAGEDIES
An unexplained explosion ripped through central Johannesburg during rush hour of 20 July tearing through a main road, injuring 41 people. The explosion left a lot of infrastructure damaged including buildings and the main roads within the CBD being unable to be used. As if that was not enough, 77 people including children lost their lives after a fire at the hijacked Usindiso Place of Safety for Women and Children in August. Siyabonga Masikane who is a school teacher in Newcastle, KwaZulu Natal said that he will never forget that the downtown tragedy took away his fiance Nokwazi Khanyile (27). "We were supposed to be rejoicing busy going around buying and paying for the things to be used in our wedding. That dream is long gone as I had to bury her early last month after she passed away in that fire. I'll never recover from what I saw, the way she was taken away from us," he said. Khanyile who was a teacher in Soweto was amongst the 77 people who passed away in the fire that engulfed a hijacked building in the CBD. Khanyile who hails from the Kwangono Village in Nkandla in the north of KwaZulu Natal was an educator at the Simelane Secondary School in Dobsonville, Soweto. "What pains me the most is that we lost our loved ones because of the negligence of our government and we never received any help from them. They were busy making promises on national television but they never afforded us any help," he said. Many families were forced to bury their loved ones in mid and late September. Masikane and Khanyile were meant to get married in a traditional wedding in an event they had scheduled for this month.
HISTORICAL BUILDING
On August 15, Westminster Mansions in Johannesburg, the three-story Neo-classical building situated on the peri-central Highlands Road, in historic Yeoville holds a history dating back to the 1920s, caught fire. It was home to renowned singer Lebo Mathosa, who once used the corridors as a make-believe stage as a young aspiring star. Following the tragic incident in the Johannesburg CBD where 77 people including children lost their life after a fire at the hijacked Usindiso Place of Safety for Women and Children in August, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi announced that they had established a commission of inquiry to look into the incident. Lesufi said the inquiry would also make recommendations on who should be held responsible for the deadly fire. Lesufi appointed a panel chaired by retired Constitutional Court Judge, Justice Sisi Khampepe assisted by Advocate Thulani Makhubela and Vuyelwa Mathilda Mabena. Lesufi said that the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry would help avert any political influence into the probe. The incident caught the attention of the international media and opened a debate about illegally occupied buildings in big cities in Mzansi, from Gauteng to Cape Town and Durban. The commission is set to investigate the high rise of several buildings that have been illegally hijacked in the City of Johannesburg and the cause of the deadly fire. It is still unclear when will the findings of the commission be tabled to the public.
ERADICATING HIJACKED BUILDING NOT A SOLUTION
Dr Richard Ballard, Chief Researcher at Gauteng City-Region Observatory from Wits University and University of Johannesburg, said eradicating hijacked buildings is not the answer. "The fire that killed people in a five-story building in Johannesburg on 31 August is not an isolated incident and has elicited the usual unhelpful response from some city officials and politicians. They have placed the blame on the informal occupation of abandoned buildings, a phenomenon known as hijacking. They have also blamed immigrant populations who, they say, are the primary residents of such buildings. To solve the problem, they argue, hijacked buildings should be expropriated and redeveloped by the private sector. A politician in the city council has also called for mass deportations of illegal foreigners. Based on my work as a researcher on how cities are built and transformed at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), I argue that all of this is a distraction from the urgent work of reducing risks in the living environments of the poor and reducing the risk of fire more generally," he said.
