Nongoma Local Municipality blames load shedding for fire that destroyed three stores at a shopping centre
|Published
Burnt stores at Nongoma Plaza Stores that were burned down in the early hours of Wednesday in Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Picture: Nqubeko Ndlela
Durban - Nongoma Local Municipality Speaker, Bhekinkosi Zulu, said a fire that burned down three stores at Nongoma Plaza early on Wednesday was caused by load shedding.
Zulu said the incident happened at midnight just as the power came back on. He added that three stores were affected, including a bank.
“Although I was not there when this happened, the reports are that the fire was caused by the load shedding, and three stores were affected by the fire. I do not have full details, the mayor has the full details,” Zulu said.
The National Freedom Party’s (NFP) Canaan Mdletshe said that while he believed the municipality had challenges, if load shedding was the cause of the fire, then the government needed to urgently tackle the crisis.
“This also talks about the load shedding challenge we face as a country. The government has to urgently attend to it and come up with solutions for this crisis. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this will happen soon,” Mdletshe said.
ActionSA’s provincial chairperson Zwakele Mncwango said the damage was partly due to the Zululand District Municipality’s failure to appropriately distribute emergency service vehicles among its municipalities, resulting in the Fire Department’s late arrival at the scene of the fire.
“To protect the vulnerable and those who reside in rural communities, ActionSA calls on the Zululand District Municipality to perform a full planning and distribution of emergency vehicles amongst its local municipalities,” he said.
He added that the party also called on the KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Ministry to revisit its disaster management budget, and determine whether funds that were allocated to district municipalities were adequate for providing emergency services to KZN residents.
Nongoma Local Municipality mayor Albert Mncwango said the damage the fire caused was extensive, and a full investigation was under way by the municipality.
Mncwango rubbished the reports that they had to wait for firefighters from Ulundi, which is 40 minutes away from Nongoma.
“Zululand District Municipality is based in Ulundi and their disaster management teams are more advanced than us. Our firefighters immediately attended to the scene, but because of the extent of the fire and because we did not have enough firefighters we had to call for assistance, which we did.
“The district has done this, they have assisted us in the past, it is not something new. Actually, it is their jurisdiction to assist us as local municipalities,” Mncwango said.