Five years since Bank of Lisbon fire, still no SAPS report
The police report into the deadly Bank of Lisbon fire has not been completed five years since the blaze claimed the lives of three firefighters.
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi revealed this in a written reply to the DA’s Jack Bloom in the Gauteng legislature.
According to Lesufi, the Department of Labour report was received in September 2022, but the South African Police Service report remains outstanding.
A report by the City of Johannesburg and the provincial government was also received.
This as former Premier David Makhura indicated that all the investigations would be completed by September 2021, and there would be a consolidated report that would be made public.
"The failure by SAPS to complete their investigation is either astounding incompetence or deliberate delay to protect ANC politicians and senior officials who should be held accountable for the fire,” said Bloom.
"Lesufi’s reply contradicts Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko’s reply to me last year when she said, "No further investigations are anticipated as far as we have established unless there are developments that have not been communicated to us.
"According to Gauteng Health MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko, an Occupational Health and Safely Incident Investigation report was done by the Department of Labour in conjunction with South African Police Services shortly after the fire on 5 September 2018."
Bloom said he suspects that the report has not yet been made public as it implicates former Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa and then Infrastructure Development MEC Jacob Mamabolo.
"Immediately after the fire, I laid criminal charges of culpable homicide against them for negligence in not setting up a functioning Occupational Health and Safety Committee for the building and for ignoring multiple warnings from unions and staff about the fire hazard.
"The DA will use the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to ensure all the reports are made public. We cannot have a situation where there is no accountability for fires where people die, as happened last week at the Albert Street building in inner-city Johannesburg."
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