South Africa readies crackdown on 2,400 hijacked buildings as funding gap blocks evictions
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South Africa has registered about 2,400 non-compliant buildings across its eight metropolitan municipalities and will prioritise a national funding model for temporary emergency accommodation, which municipalities lack when executing eviction orders.
Justice Minister and Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Migration chairperson Mmamoloko Kubayi says about 2,400 non-compliant buildings have been registered across South Africa's eight metropolitan municipalities, as the government moves to tackle hijacked and abandoned properties. Kubayi was briefing the media on September 8 on the committee's operational plan to deal with the buildings, which she said were in many cases illegally occupied and used for criminal activities including human trafficking, drug dealing and illicit goods trading.
The IMC considered a consolidated report on managing bad and hijacked buildings that drew on submissions from Johannesburg, Tshwane, eThekwini, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay, Mangaung and Buffalo City, together with published information from the City of Cape Town. Kubayi said the report found that every metropolitan municipality already had the by-laws, structures and enforcement processes needed, and that the major constraint was executing court orders because municipalities have no funded temporary emergency accommodation for occupants.
Mayors from the eight metros validated the report's findings during a meeting on September 2, raising concerns about lost municipal revenue from non-payment of rates and excessive water and energy use in buildings occupied beyond their approved capacity. They also requested that consideration be given to repurposing under-used and vacant buildings for student housing and affordable rental accommodation as a preventive measure against inner-city decay.
The IMC resolved to prioritise three interventions: a national funding model for temporary emergency accommodation led by the Department of Human Settlements; prioritisation of hijacked-building matters by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development in the Magistrates' and High Courts; and a single national definition and reporting template coordinated by the Department of Cooperative Governance to measure the problem consistently across all metros. Kubayi said the work aims to rehabilitate dilapidated inner-city areas and remove criminal enclaves operating from the buildings.