Taxpayers could end up footing the bill for a fire that destroyed several parliamentary buildings on 2 January.
The Sunday Times reported that the property is not insured.
Public works acting director-general, Imtiaz Fazel, told the newspaper that the cost of insuring a R141 billion state property portfolio of more than 82 000 buildings is unaffordable.
To rebuild parliament, his department will need to make an application through the annual budgeting process, but Fazel said he could not yet estimate the sum required.
Architect Jack van der Lecq, who designed the National Assembly building in the 1980s and supervised its construction said that the repair bill was likely to run into the hundreds of millions and as much as R1 billion, depending on the extent of the damage.
Sources close to discussions about the buildings said the public works department and parliament might have to find the money from their baseline allocations, or finance minister Enoch Godongwana could announce a special allocation in his budget next month.
A report this week found several cases of negligence, including:
- The water sprinklers in the old House of Assembly building and the National Assembly wing were closed and should have undergone maintenance in February 2020;
- The fire detection system appeared to be faulty, as firefighting services were already on the scene when the alarms sounded; and
- The security cameras in the parliamentary complex were not monitored between 02h00 and 06h00 on the morning of the fire.
According to the city, the fire department dispatched a dozen vehicles and approximately 70 personnel to fight the blaze, the first arriving just six minutes after the alarm was initially raised.
The Old Assembly Chamber, one of the oldest buildings in parliament, and several offices were gutted, while the National Assembly, the main debating chamber, was severely damaged.