The University of Cape Town's insurance company is looking to sue South African National Parks (SANParks) for damages over its alleged failure to deploy choppers timeously in last year's April fire.
The fire broke out on the slopes of Table Mountain then extended to the university's property.
The fire destroyed the UCT property and its historical buildings - resulting in an estimation of more than R500-million — excluding the loss of priceless books and documents.
At the time of the fire, there were media reports of SANParks and the chopper agency having contractual issues, this had allegedly led to SANParks calling the City of Cape Town’s fire chief to deploy the choppers.
In an ENCA live interview, the City's Mayco Member for Safety and Security, JP Smith said:
The fire chief says to me within about 60 seconds of that call being received we activated our contract with the aerial firefighting appliances so we had the water bombing activated from our side so there was a very little delay, not any meaningful delay that impacted the fire in any way from the point where we were called.
Both the university and the Department of Environmental Affairs are not in a position to make any comments in relation to the negligence allegations.
The court will decide who is guilty in this matter after necessary papers have been filed.
UCT clarified that the intended litigation is between its insurers and those of SANParks.