Govt ‘will take responsibility for Usindiso fire victims, says Zulu

The fire claimed the lives of at least 74 people, including 12 children. The Gauteng pathology services said on Friday that only 12 of the victims were not burnt beyond recognition.

"This building does not belong to the Department of Social Development,” Zulu told the media upon her arrival at the scene.

But she added that the government will take responsibility for the victims.

"The responsibility that we are going to take as government, especially at the provincially and national level, is to look after the people that were in this building, find out where they are.

"What is important for the Department of Social Development is to deal with the post-traumatic stress of what has happened to these people. I can't imagine if it could have been me with a child in the fire there. what happened? Who is responsible? For what?

"The due process and the law will take its course from the point of the police and everybody concerned. The Department of Social Development cannot take accountability for a building that is not under the Department of Social Development."

Zulu also said apartheid must take some of the blame for creating the conditions that force people to live in abandoned or hijacked buildings.

"Unfortunately for us, whether we like it or not, this is the result of apartheid that kept people under such conditions and we are expected to have changed those conditions within 30 years, we must take responsibility when we have to.

"What is important is that we must move with our people. Our people must also have an appreciation that when there is somebody that is taking rent from you and not bothered by the state of affairs is a very big problem."

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