If the Parliamentary Protection Services had been on duty, the 2022 blaze that gutted the National Assembly would not have happened, according to Secretary to Parliament, Xolile George, who released a summary of the national legislature’s fire investigation on Wednesday.
The flames and smoke billowing from the National Assembly on 2 January 2022 were seen across the Cape Town City Bowl, and the sirens of fire engines and other emergency services cut through the Sunday quiet.
As Daily Maverick reported at the time, the Parliamentary Protection Services (PPS) had not been on duty. They had been withdrawn from working nights and over weekends and public holidays during the festive season.
Withdrawing the in-house parliamentary protection is the outcome of leaving the PPS without permanent bosses since July 2015 when Zelda Holtzman and Motlatsi Mokgalta were suspended in ructions in the parliamentary administration – and demoting the Parliamentary Protection Services from a stand-alone division into a unit in household services.
On Wednesday, Secretary to Parliament, Xolile George, responding to a direct question, said, “Do we think Parliament would still be existing and standing… had there been staff of Parliament not on forced leave? The answer is, yes.”
The absence of the PPS “did contribute significantly to the vulnerability of Parliament”, he added.
As the national legislature had been left to be protected by the SA Police Service, slip-ups like sleeping on duty fell to them. Or, as the report…
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