Editorial Comment: Council spot on about city buildings’ maintenance

added up although each one might well be very small, offer employment and needed services.
Maintenance for most of these older buildings is adequate.
That might simply mean that nothing is going to fall off the walls and roof into the street, that the plumbing is maintained, and that basic fire regulations over escape stairs and extinguishers are obeyed.
The lifts might not work and the building might well need a good coat of paint, but there is nothing dangerous.
But some multi-storey buildings, and the Harare City Council has identified 10, are a danger.
The council has now given the owners of these 10 buildings 21 days to fix serious safety failings or the tenants must be evicted and the building closed.
The sums needed to fix most faults are not large.
The fire regulations are not onerous. Multi-storey buildings need a fire escape, in case the main stairs are a sea of fire, and pairs of suitable fire extinguishers have to be in a prominent place in each wing of each floor of a building, so that they are available within a minute or two to fight a fire while it is still small.
Public buildings need signs to tell those inside, working or visiting, where the escape routes are.
Since fire escapes have been required for well over a century, even the oldest multi-storey building must still have one.
It might be broken, blocked or locked off, but repairs, keys and the labour to clear junk are not expensive.
Fire extinguisher regulations have been updated over the years, as better models come onto the market. But again these are not expensive and with a long list of approved suppliers to chose from it is easy to get competitive quotes for supply and maintenance. Since stock is on hand this work at least can be done in 21 days.
The health regulations are again fairly basic. Toilets and wash basins simply have to work. Enough of these were installed when building plans were approved, no matter how long ago. There might be more expensive here, if main water pipes have to be replaced, but the sums are not that high.
We would hope that the city council, if it was satisfied that work was in progress and that workmen were actually on site making repairs to fire escapes and plumbing, and that the simple things like removing accumulated junk from escapes and marking escape routes had already been done, might well consider giving short extensions to the 21-day orders.
This would allow tenants to stay in business while the work was in progress.
But there can be no escape from basic safety standards.
We have all heard about scores of people dying in other countries because they could not use a blocked or broken fire escape; Harare fire brigade has had to fight major fires that could easily have been put out while they were still small if there had been a fire extinguisher handy; and we all know the sort of health problems that have rocked the city where plumbing is inadequate.
We are not talking about minor inconveniences here, such as having to walk up six flights of stairs because a lift is switched off.
We are talking about matters of life and death.
The concerns of the tenants are serious. They are scared their landlord will do nothing and that they will be evicted.
But they have means. Clubbing together they could go to court and get a court order compelling their landlord to effect vital repairs. Legal clinics might be able to help and do the work at modest cost.
We believe that in such circumstances tenants should even be able to make these repairs themselves, charge their landlord on cost-recovery and if he does not refund the money then deduct this from rents until the debt is cleared.
This may well mean a new law with a simple and cheap process to follow. But as the number of older buildings grows, there will be more and more landlords who fancy themselves as slum landlords, collecting rents and doing nothing in return. They need to be reminded of their duties to their tenants, as well as the law.
The council is correct in being firm. Now tenants of reluctant landlords need to have the knowledge and power to force the building owners to fulfil their side of rent agreements.