Heritage Cases

On the morning of the 02nd January 2022, a major fire devastated South Africa’s Parliament. The fire rendered the National Assembly (where Members of Parliament sit for debates) as well as the Old Assembly unusable. The fire appears to have started on the South East side, 02nd floor of the Old Assembly building. The National Assembly building was also severely affected by the fire. Investigations are still underway to establish the cause and origin of the fire. An internal Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) Professional Engineering Services team conducted a preliminary visual assessment of the damages, including assessing the safety aspect of the site immediately after the fires were put out. Their findings, resulting from this preliminary visual assessment, recommended that both the National Assembly and Old Assembly buildings had to be cordoned off and access restricted, until independent specialist engineering consultants could be appointed to conduct further detailed assessments and conducting tests to establish the strength of the existing material. The initial findings produced by the appointed Service Provider confirmed that the structural damages brought about by the fire, does not pose a risk to the buildings collapsing. The Phase 1 assessment report compiled made the following recommendations (Note : The report is not available for public viewing. Only specific DPWI executive officials was made party to that report for the sake of confidentiality.) 1. Making safe the walls, particularly the 2 gable walls by bracing them to avoid the possibility of them falling over. 2. Provide a temporary roof cover over the whole area to avoid further water damage to the lower floors which was largely unaffected by the fire.