COPE has blamed the City of Johannesburg for the stampede that occurred at the University of Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Yesterday Gauteng Cope leader Ndzipho Kalipa accused the City of Joburg of incompetence owing to cadre deployment.

"The city's disaster management unit should have anticipated that when thousands of people gather there is bound to be a stampede," Kalipa said.

"They should not have waited for an invitation.

They should have been proactive and controlled the crowd. They only came after a person had died."

He blamed the deployment policy of the ruling party, which he said robbed the country of good service.

"Cadre deployment has resulted in poor service that sometimes leads to a loss of lives as we have witnessed with the stampede.

"We hope the inquiry that will be held will also look into the competence of members of the disaster management unit," Kalipa said.

He said a Cope delegation met the management of the university yesterday and was informed that crowd control outside university grounds was the responsibility of the City of Joburg.

"Disaster management officials should have known that even if they have been employed because they are card-carrying members of a political party, they should still show an acceptable level of competence in their work."

City of Joburg disaster management spokesman Nana Radebe could not comment at the time of going to press.

The stampede happened on Tuesday when prospective students stormed a gate at the Bunting Road campus of the UJ in a bid to make last-minute applications for admission.

The incident had left a parent dead and a number of students injured.