The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Today is Tuesday, September 5th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Paul Schlehlein and presented by Yamikani Katunga.
Oxen with Bad Reps as a Solution to Joburg Fires
In the early morning of August 31, flames erupted out in a five-story building in the CBD of Johannesburg, South Africa, eventually killing seventy-four people, including children, in one of the worst fire tragedies in recent memory. Some of the charred remains of bodies were laid in the public streets.
Residents, family members, and media outlets immediately expressed outrage, believing that the fire could have easily been avoided. The building apparently belongs to the city of Joburg, once used by the courts and later as a shelter for abused women. But the building had become an overcrowded, temporary housing unit for migrants, just like scores of other buildings throughout the city. Gangs have since hi-jacked the premises and now do the rent collecting themselves.
President Cyril Ramaphosa called this catastrophe a “wake up call” for government to provide more housing for the disadvantaged.
Indeed, the solution to this problem is complex because there are so many problems at play. The first is overcrowding. The housing backlog in Johannesburg is immense, with hundreds of thousands lacking adequate accommodations. Thousands of new people flood into the city each month. The population of Joburg was under one million in 1950, rose to 3 million in the year 2000, and currently stands at 6.2 million. The problem is not going away. The UN predicts the population will be 7.5 million by 2035.
Part of the reason for this overcrowding is that two of South Africa’s neighbouring countries, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, have employed failed Marxist policies that have drowned their people in poverty. The people need jobs, so they flood into South Africa.
The second problem is the “ticking time bomb” of unemployment. The unemployment rate of working-age South Africans is 42%, the highest in the world. And while Joburg may have more millionaires than any city on the continent, the country still has twenty million adults out of 60 million that are not working or engaged in economic activity. An overcrowded city of unemployed adults is not a good combination. The way out is not easy.
But here’s one small solution that will help toward fixing the problem: an emphasis on personal property.
It should not surprise us that the fire happened at a building that was government-owned. Of course, fires still happen in private dwellings, but rarely at this scale. Human nature causes us to care better for what we own. Conversely, governments are notorious for mismanaging property, as is easily seen by the uncut grass and broken windows at the Department of Home Affairs and government schools.
According to Scripture, private citizens should own property, not the government or the community as a whole. The 8th commandment assumes personal property as it reads: “You shall not steal.” If there is no personal property, there can be no stealing.
When we own property (like a car, a radio, or a bike), we become stewards. We become responsible. We become accountable. But the government has little accountability and therefore is less motivated to steward well what they do not possess personally.
This is exactly what happened with the Joburg housing fires. The media blamed the government for mismanagement. The government blamed the gangs and cartels that collected the rental fees. No one is accountable.
But if a man by the name of David, Dlamini, or Du Plessis were given ownership of the building with a proper title deed, he would have been more likely to use the building to turn an honest profit. If fires ensue, David, Dlamini, or Du Plessis would be responsible.
Former Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba implied this in an interview, saying that over one hundred buildings had already been handed over to the private sector. This is good. Unfortunately, the latest smoldering ruin was not one of them.
Exodus 21:29 gives us direction. In the Old Testament, if an ox gored a man to death, the ox was to be killed but the owner was not held liable. But on the other hand, suppose the ox had the reputation for goring people and the owner had done nothing. In this case, both the ox and the owner were put to death.
In today’s terms, if a building has a dangerous reputation and nothing is done, the owner faces the consequences. This is only possible with private ownership.
It is our task not only to sympathize with those who lost loved ones but to implement solutions that will prevent this from happening again. As always, those solutions are found in Scripture. Now we must follow them.
And that’s it for The Africa Review in Five on this Tuesday, September 5th in the year of our Lord 2023. Subscribe to the Missionary Minds podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts. I’m Yamikani Katunga. Be not weary in well-doing.