Pretoria - Charges of theft have been laid against individuals and companies accused of hijacking properties in Pretoria West and collecting rent from occupants despite not being the rightful owners.
In addition, the ANC Youth League Tshwane region has urged hundreds of tenants living in the buildings not to pay rent until there was clarity on their ownership.
This should include renovation and maintenance plans, regional youth league chairman Lesego Makhubela said.
He was addressing the media on the hijacking and stealing of as many as 500 houses, most of them in Pretoria West.
Makhubela said some of the slumlords were known and would be made to pay every cent they made during the two decades of collecting rent from tenants. He called for the city to conduct a large-scale investigation into the matter and consider converting the properties into RDP or low-cost houses, giving preference to existing occupants.
The houses were given to whites during apartheid under the Group Areas Act, but most abandoned them post 1994, Makhubela said.
Slumlords took advantage, he said, and hijacked houses and flats after fire gutted the former city council head office, Munitoria, in 1997, destroying records of municipal property ownership.
The properties are not registered in the names of the landlords.
Other title deeds have dodgy identity numbers and no full names of the owners. The rent is due to increase by 10 percent at the end of this month. Tenants who cannot afford it are being evicted.
Those already evicted have sought refuge at an abandoned church which already houses almost 50 people.
City of Tshwane mayoral spokesman Blessing Manale said the alleged hijacked properties belonged to the municipality or erstwhile councils before amalgamation. “We strongly believe that such a practice might have been the result of direct and deliberate fraudulent activity or genuine loss of ownership documentation and deeds,” he said.
“The city will conduct a preliminary investigation to determine the scale of the problem with an intention to seek various causes of action and recourse.
“These may include, the repossession of the properties, institution of criminal charges and where deemed legitimate and justified the proper transfer of such properties to legitimate owners and potential beneficiaries.”
The buildings in question are in a sorry state. Tshepiso Dambuza shares a room with her boyfriend and child in Soutter Street, paying R2 130 a month.
There is a communal bathroom and toilet servicing all 19 rooms and no electricity. Dambuza uses a gas stove, while most of her fellow tenants boil water in a tin outside the building.
Dambuza said she would not leave as the house did not belong to her landlord, despite being given an eviction notice.
Poppy Mokoena stays under squalid conditions with Maria Tutja, who has been living at Soutter House since 2003. Tutja has an eight-month-old child, Tebatso.
Ben Matsididi has been renting his house for 15 years. His lease agreement indicates that the R3 500 will cover rent and services, while his landlord takes care of rates and taxes. “The electricity was cut off because the owner had not been paying rates and taxes. I asked for title deeds, and he responded by threatening me with eviction. But I refuse to move out,” he said. A man who grew up in the house visited last week to take photographs and show his grandchildren.
The Youth League condemned the use of its identity by one of the slumlords to intimidate his tenants. Makhubela said the landlord personalised his car registration to read “ANCYL-GP” after the youth movement. “We condemn the use of the name as a scarecrow,” he added.
Pretoria News