Doornfontein wall collapse: Zille calls for urgent attention to downtown Joburg

The Democratic Alliance (DA)’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, said the state of downtown Johannesburg needs urgent attention after a wall collapse in Doornfontein.

Four people were injured during a gas explosion at a student residence on Monday.

It’s understood that there may have been a gas leak before the transformer tripped in response to the explosion.

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City Power has since isolated the power supply to the building affected and nearby premises to restore power supply in phases to the residents in the area.

Zille said her visit to the affected building on Monday was not an election ploy ahead of the upcoming local polls, but a genuine attempt to identify challenges that need to be addressed.

“But the whole point is to go to the crisis spots in Joburg to see for myself what's going on, to take in what the problems are, to investigate deeply so that we can come to some kind of understanding of what it's going to take to fix Joburg. That's what it's all about.”

Johannesburg MMC for Public Safety Mgcini Tshwaku said political parties need to put service delivery ahead of their own agendas.

“Because now they just came here to do some politics, which they do by the way, with many political parties. They don't get to the bottom of it. So, you're going to see this thing where we're actually used to it. But I'm just saying that she [Helen Zille] should start there first in the Western Cape and fix the City of Cape Town before being forward here.”