SOUTH AFRICA - Cape Town - Stock Image - Hanover Park is a township of the City of Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The Cape Flats suburb is notorious for violence and gangsterism. In July the suburb was one of the areas to which the SANDF was deployed. Eric Court. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
With regard to the mayor’s claim that “the City has the money to fix the staircases”, a claim we as the National Coloured Congress (NCC) cannot understand as minimal effort has been made to salvage an impending disaster.
For this reason you are cordially invited to attend the independent assessment of the staircases of flats 14 to 40 Perseus Road Woodlands, Mitchells Plain, on Monday, February 26 at noon.
The NCC has asked for the unbiased findings of a credible structural engineer and a registered health and safety practitioner to be made in public. We know that the City’s own engineer has condemned hundreds of staircases like this as ailing and in critical need of replacement as far back as 2017.
We also have in our possession the city manager’s admission that his cancellation of these repairs was unlawful. Already people have suffered entirely avoidable injuries, with the City facing legal consequences as a result.
A fatality resulting from tons of falling concrete is probable, which makes the mayor’s claim to have the funds to replace this health hazard seem unrealistic at best.
If the health and safety officer and/or the engineer draw a negative conclusion and concur with the city engineer that the staircases are indeed a safety hazard, the NCC will immediately proceed to the Lentegeur police station to lay criminal charges against all officials and politicians involved, those that lied about the money not being stolen and the one who denied us access to the documentation that would have seen the alleged perpetrators jailed two years ago.
The condemned staircases are exclusive not only to Mitchells Plain, but to the rest of the Cape Metro as well as in areas such as Ocean View, Lavender Hill, Parkwood, Hanover Park, Atlantis and many more
* National Coloured Congress Councillor Sakiena Frenchman.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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