City of Joburg tech detected CBD blaze, says mayor Kabelo Gwamanda

City of Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda has hailed the metro’s safer city strategy rollout as a key factor in its emergency response to the inner-city blaze that claimed the lives of 77 people last week.

Gwamanda reported that it was Johannesburg’s “integrated intelligence operational centre [IIOC] that, through their artificial intelligence-driven CCTV cameras,” picked up unusual activity at the Usindiso building.

“What is unknown to many is that no call was made from the building or any other persons, reporting a fire at the building. It is the IIOC that created the alert at 1.19am, to the emergency services and they responded speedily and were on site at 1.29am.”

The Joburg mayor was providing feedback to councillors regarding his administration’s interventions and response to the disaster. 

Following their alert as a result of a component of the recently rolled-out technology, Gwamanda says personnel and equipment were rapidly deployed to fight the blaze.

Calling it a fateful tragedy, he bemoaned the “sorrowful” incident, saying it must be prevented from ever recurring.

“Most unfortunate is that the building concerned was a city building; one the city owned and somehow lost to the illegal syndicates that hijack and illegally occupy buildings in the inner-city.”

Gwamanda said his mayoral committee had taken a firm view that this kind of criminality and informality must be stopped in the inner-city and throughout Johannesburg.

“We cannot allow our people, who are in distress economically and socially, to be further abused and placed in dangerous circumstances by unscrupulous syndicates seeking to exploit their lack of accommodation.”

The mayor also criticised tiptoeing around the issue of illegal immigrants, whom he says have proliferated the inner-city, making it difficult for law enforcement to enforce bylaws.

“So far, 43% of the affected households at Usindiso House have been assessed and 61% are foreign nationals. The challenge of illegality in our immigration has never been more glaring than the difficulty it has caused in providing temporary shelter to the affected.”

The mayor reported that women and children flatly refused assistance based on the fear that they may be identified and potentially deported.

He vowed that the leadership of the city would investigate who and where in the city they had failed to act to prevent the illegal occupation of buildings and to manage the consequences.

“We are aware that there are several other buildings in a similar state, and these have been a priority in our administration, and we invest more time and energy to immediately attend to them using all legal instruments available to us.”

Gwamanda announced that his team was engaged in numerous processes to attend to the aftermath of the tragedy.

“Working with other spheres of government, we are looking at the future of such buildings and at how best we respond to these issues, including legal avenues to seek clarity, a new framework and review of judgments by the courts.”

The mayor noted the announcement of a commission of inquiry by Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, and said the City of Johannesburg would offer an opinion once it had seen the terms of reference.

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