TWO South African labour department officials have been suspended and face internal charges relating to a factory fire in which 11 workers burnt to death last year. “We have reason to believe there was ineptitude and dereliction of duty,” Labour Department Director General Rams Ramashia said, adding that two senior managers were to be charged. The fire broke out at a chemical factory in Lenasia, just south of Johannesburg, on November 17, when workers had been locked in the premises for their night shift. Months earlier, two workers at the factory had complained to the Department of Labour that they were regularly locked inside the building with highly inflammable chemicals for the duration of their 16-hour shifts.