The City of Cape Town said in a statement on Tuesday that the hall had sustained severe damage and would be closed until further notice.
Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security and Social Services, JP Smith, said: “As can be seen in the pictures, the fire damage is extensive, resulting in almost all of the ceiling boards in the main hall being destroyed. They are now littering the floor of the hall. This is particularly hard to swallow when just yesterday (Monday) the Department of Recreation and Parks finished extensive repairs to all ceilings boards and doors in this facility after years of motivating for the funding for these repairs.
“No room within this facility was spared in this act of violence. The main hall and kitchen have both sustained substantial fire damage. Even the store room of the facility was burnt down, along with all of the recreation equipment stored within it.”
Area Head, Sarel van Deventer, said: “After hearing the news, it was difficult for me to motivate myself to get out of bed to face going to see the utter destruction of one of our best Recreation Hubs in Cape Town.
“Just last week this hall was humming with children at a series of Youth Day programmes and we had weeks of holiday programmes planned for winter. Now I have had to remove my staff from the facility. I can’t describe how discouraging this is for us as recreation staff, as we have spent years transforming this hall into one that the community can be proud of, where in any given week almost 2,500 children and youth visit the centre for recreation programmes.”
Regular programmes at the facility include aerobics, basketball, drama, and crèche programmes, while the centre also had a very popular gym. The nearest community halls are the Summer Greens and Milnerton Hall and the City’s Recreation and Parks department will accommodate users of the Joe Slovo hall at these centres as far as possible.
The City said that it was unclear when it would be possible to repair the Joe Slovo facility as it was the end of the financial year and the budget for next year had already been allocated.
“Due to the extensive nature of the damage, it will be very difficult to secure enough funds to repair this facility in the coming year.”