Fires cause thousands of the poorest to lose everything yet again in Cape Town
30 November 2015
COPE has repeatedly urged government at all three levels to provide planning services at the very least for informal settlements.
The fact that 4000 were made homeless in one disastrous instance highlights the necessity for immediate action. Our humanity, leave alone our politics, demands real action from the powers that be.
If roads are laid out to encourage temporary structures to be erected in an orderly fashion, the poorest of the poor would not have had to endure fire after fire without any end in sight to their torment.
Furthermore, it is our contention that the Cape Town City Council should have acted proactively and trained community members to become volunteer fire fighters. The Council could thereafter have provided such firefighters with equipment and extinguishers. Why has this not been done in view of fires being such a frequent occurrence.