Parliament confident of meeting November 2025 restoration deadline

Parliament is confident the restoration of its fire-ravaged buildings will be completed by November 2025. 

Secretary to parliament Xolile George told the parliamentary Press Gallery Association on Monday a delay in removing rubble was due to safety issues encountered in the rebuilding process. 

Parliament officials previously told MPs the removal of rubble would start on June 20 and be completed by July 31. But it emerged at the weekend the debris has still not been removed. 

George said this was due to “multiple attendant issues” at site level which forced workers to tread carefully. 

Among them was a requirement to account for assets, including artworks, before their removal, but accessing them was tricky due to the extensive damage in the new wing and old assembly buildings. 

“We planned to start on June 20 to remove rubble and to complete it by the end of July. At the start of that process we could only proceed on the basis of a detailed technical assessment by structural engineers,” said George. 

“So to be able to handle multiple attendant processes you are facing [the] auditor-general (AG) that says, ‘we want to see your assets that are there’ and you can’t assume on the basis of the damage those assets are ruined. 

“They want physical verification which entails going through the building, and going through the building means navigating space underground where heritage assets are [kept] and physically identify if the office chair is there, the desk is there, its coding is still recognisable and so on.” 

Parliament appointed the Development Bank of Southern Africa as implementing agent for the reconstruction project which is estimated to cost R2bn. 

George said an examination of structural conditions and determining pathways was central to parliamentary officials doing that work. 

And as they did so, the further down they went, more problems, such as water ingress which penetrated many areas and site conditions that changed almost every week due to inclement weather, made things difficult. 

“You’ve got [a] wide open roof that changes the conditions. So determining water levels at a particular time and what it does on the base erosion is a critical issue for technical people that would be able to guide where can we assess, where we cannot assess, to be able to remove the rubble. Those conditions materialised. 

Declining oxygen levels also became a central condition; even if people were allowed in there, they need oxygen to undertake the work.  

“Those are conditions that in any situation of a site discovery become additional to what normally would be your plan to get in there and in the removal of the rubble we planned for a month; we also faced those conditions.” 

George said despite “the minor delay”, they remained committed to the timeline that by the end of November 2025 the restoration would be completed. 

Criticism about “delays” was not deserved because the affected area was a crime scene for a few months and only the Hawks could access it. 

Parliament could also only start work on the basis of a fiscal response to be able to get technical engineers who would determine pathways for its officials to conduct the assessments as per the AG asset register requirements. 

“So  we are less than four months on that site. The 18 months is irreconcilable with the time it took to be [able] to do the work.” 

The plan was still to get the contractor on site by January 2024 to start the rebuilding work. 

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