By Botho Molosankwe
The City of Joburg has evicted squatters from the dilapidated building that used to house Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo's legal practice in the 1950s.
While it has set aside R10 million to revamp it, the building's owners refuse to sell it as they believe the city's R350 000 offer is unreasonable and does not take into account the property's historical value.
The Essa family bought the property in 1942 for £23 000 and have since 2003 refused to sell it to the council.
The city intends to expropriate it if it battles to buy it in the open market.
Yesterday, the squatters who have been living there for a number of years were removed and taken to an emergency shelter, where they are expected to stay for up to a year until they find their own accommodation.
The building, known as Chancellor House, was where Sisulu and Mandela opened the country's first black-run legal business.
Today there are more pieces of cardboard, plastic bags and corrugated sheets on the windows than panes.
The walls are blackened by soot from a fire that broke out there a few years ago, and a terrible stench hangs permanently in the air.
The residents have to walk about a kilometre to a tavern next to the Westgate train station to relieve themselves, no matter what time of day or night.
They also relieve themselves in the nearby bushes, or make use of buckets.
Yesterday, stained mattresses, dirty clothes, torn couches and filthy blankets lay in a huge pile in front of the derelict building.
All around, police kept watch as men and women disappeared into the dark and reeking building and came out carrying belongings that they dumped on the ground and later loaded into a truck.
Metro police, SA Police Service members and officers from the City of Joburg arrived early in the morning to evict the squatters and to ensure that the eviction was peaceful.
Lael Bethlehem, the chief executive officer of the Joburg Development Agency, said they had in the past tried to buy the building because the Essa family had not been looking after it properly and seemed unable or unwilling to tackle its awful condition.
The Essa family's legal representative, advocate Ismail Ayob, said he and the family did not know of yesterday's eviction until The Star mentioned it.
Ayob said the family were not refusing to sell the building and that if a "reasonable" offer was made, they were prepared to look at it.