Sunday Times reports that a name on a truck is cold comfort for a Newcastle father whose firefighter son died in the Bank of Lisbon fire in Johannesburg on 5 September last year.
That, and R12,000 towards funeral costs, are all the family of Mduduzi Ndlovu, 40, have received from the city so far.
“It hurts,” said his father, Albert Ndlovu. Almost a year after Ndlovu and his colleagues Simphiwe Moropane, 28, and Khathutshelo Muedi, 37, died in the blaze, their families have not received pension and provident-fund payouts. They are also no closer to finding out why they died.
There is a glimmer of hope though. City of Joburg emergency medical services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said an independent report on the fire had been finalised and the families would soon be briefed. But he could not say if the report would be made public.
Ndlovu was trapped in the flames and burned to death. Muedi died when his oxygen tank was depleted and Moropane — facing a wall of fire and with no way to breathe — fell from the 23rd floor.
The fire burned for about 24 hours and the building, owned by the public works department, is likely to be demolished.
The fire also exposed the parlous state of the city’s fire service.
Muedi’s sister Johana, a firefighter for the City of Tshwane, said: “I have to walk into these burning buildings myself, knowing that is how my brother died. It’s been difficult for the whole family to deal with, his death, but I think my mom has taken it the worst. Some days she just cries.”
She said her family were not offered counselling. “We are still not okay. My mother needs it because she is really not coping at all.”
Muedi’s brother Israel said that beyond grief counselling the family wanted answers. “We are told there was an investigation and a report, but we have seen nothing.”
The city’s Mulaudzi blamed the families for the delay in payouts.
“Some relevant documentation was submitted by the three families. However, there were issues pertaining to the correct beneficiaries, which require documentation. These are legal processes,” he said.
Mulaudzi added that “continuous” counselling and support services had been provided to the relatives of the firefighters.
An initial emergency services report into the blaze, completed in January and obtained by the Sunday Times through a Promotion of Access to Information Act application, revealed that only six fire trucks were able to respond. It also found that the building had no water.
Since the blaze, the city has spent R216m to buy 40 new fire trucks that are expected to be delivered by the end of the year. At the time of the fire, the city had just six trucks. Three have since been added.
The new fire trucks will have the names of Moropane, Ndlovu and Muedi inscribed on them, but Albert Ndlovu said this was little comfort.
“For them to put my son’s name on a truck after he died will not help me in any way,” he said, insisting that neither his son’s pension nor provident fund had been paid over to the family.
The original of the above report by Jeff Wicks appeared on page 8 of Sunday Times of 18 August 2019
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