Question NW3291 to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs
13 November 2017 - NW3291
Filtane, Mr ML to ask the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs
Whether, in light of the fact that the Mthatha Magistrates Court Building in the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality (KSDLM) in the Eastern Cape was destroyed by a fire that broke out on 18 September 2017, which led to critical court documents being destroyed (details furnished), there are functional firefighting trucks and/or other relevant equipment in the specified local municipality; if not, why not; if so, why were they not immediately dispatched when the fire broke out in the Integrated Justice Criminal Centre?
Reply:
The National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) interacted with the Eastern Cape Provincial Disaster Management Centre (PDMC) in order to obtain a response to this Parliamentary Question. The reply from the Eastern Cape PDMC is as outlined below:
a) No. The KSD Municipality does not have functional firefighting vehicles and other relevant equipment. The under mentioned vehicles, outlined in Table 1, are part of the existing firefighting fleet, but are not functional due to mechanical breakdowns:
|
Type of vehicle |
Purpose of vehicle |
|
2 x Medium Fire Pumpers |
Structural / building fires |
|
1 x Light Rescue |
Motor Vehicle Accidents |
|
2 x Light Delivery Vehicle (LDV) firefighting skid units- |
Veldfires |
b) The KSDLM’s Fire Service could not respond due to the following reasons:
(i) Both the Medium firefighting Pumpers as per above table were not operational due to mechanical breakdowns; and,
(ii) Only one (1) of the two (2) LDV firefighting Skid units was operational but had experienced a problem with the pump on the day of the reported fire incident. It must, however, be noted that this vehicle is not suitable for the use of Structural / Building Fires but only for veldfires.