Johannesburg’s Human Settlements MMC, Mlungisi Mabaso, said that without the intervention of the police and the Department of Home Affairs, the city’s hands were tied in dealing with the hijacked building crisis in the city.
This comes after a three-storey building burnt down on Sunday morning in Jeppestown, killing four people and leaving more than 200 residents displaced due to what is believed to be illegal electricity connections.
This tragedy, which comes almost a year after the Usindiso building fire that claimed more than 70 lives in August 2023, has raised critical questions about the metro’s progress in dealing with the scourge of hijacked buildings in the inner city, as lives continue to be lost.
Speaking on 702’s Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa on Monday morning, Mabaso urged the private owners of these buildings to seek law enforcement assistance.
“If the owner identified that their property has been hijacked, they’ve got ways of opening cases with the police so that the police are able to assist them in that regard because the reality is that the municipality cannot do much in dealing with that outside the law enforcement processes.”
Mabaso said there was very little the city can do.
“We are not the ones responsible for dealing with the SAPS [South African Police Service],” the MMC said.
Meanwhile, the Marshalltown Fire Justice Campaign has slammed the government for failing to solve the issue of unsafe buildings following the deadly Jeppestown fire.
The spokesperson for the campaign, Mametlwe Sebei, said this showed the government had not learned any lessons from the Usindiso building fire tragedy.
“It’s absolutely deplorable and represents the most incriminating indictment against the elite that has allowed the city to rot under their watch, with tragic consequences for ordinary people.
“This elite is not only incapable of taking the city forward, building new towns, universities, and hospitals, but it also cannot maintain the existing infrastructure it inherited.”
Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero asked for more time to deal with what he called a very complex issue.
“It is also about resources that we must mobilise through national government and other institutions, like the PIC [Public Investment Corporation], to see how they can support young people.
“There is a principle already. We are going to take these buildings, some we will expropriate immediately, and hand them over to young entrepreneurs to turn them into residential and commercial spaces.”
-EWN
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