Johannesburg, commonly know as the place of gold and once hailed as Africa's wealthiest city has become a shadow of its former self and is now riddled with crime, illegal immigrants and abandoned buildings, which are a death trap for the homeless.

Most of the abandoned building are occupied by low-income, unemployed, and disadvantaged people, who include South Africans and foreign nationals.

They live in life-threatening, crowded conditions with their families, mostly without water and sanitation facilities, or electricity.

Inside these buildings, privacy and safety are not guaranteed as many of the units are divided by boards, curtains, and wooden walls.

Residents blame the government for its inability and failure to provide adequate housing for the people who are struggling to survive.

Last year in August, a fire ripped through the Usindiso Ministries for Women and Children, a five-storey building in the Johannesburg CBD, killing at least 77 people.

In June 2023, two children aged five and seven years old died in a fire that gutted their apartment. The children were locked up in their apartment on the second floor of the Florence Nightingale building in Hillbrow.

Two kids (aged 7 and 5 years old) died in a fire that gutted their apartment. The children were locked up in their apartment on the second floor of the Florence Nightingale building in Hillbrow. Picture: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers / File

Last week Sunday, four people lost their lives and more than 260 were left homeless after a fire razed through a hijacked building in Jeppestown .

These incidents amongst others, are exposing the problem of hijacked buildings in the City of Joburg.

DA Gauteng spokesperson for human settlements Mervyn Cirota blamed the continued fires in the city’s hijacked buildings in the hands of the Department of Human Settlements, in conjunction with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the City of Johannesburg.

“These parties have failed to develop a feasible plan to tackle the housing challenge in the inner city. This has resulted in the hijacking of buildings that are not conducive to live in, posing a safety and health risk for the inhabitants.

“The continuous incidents of fires and unnecessary deaths due to the absence of an effective remedy are concerning and point to a lack of a definite path ahead,” said Cirota.

On Wednesday, August 28, the minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean MacPherson, revealed that there are 338 hijacked government buildings across the country.

He said the department owns about 88,000 government buildings, many of which have been hijacked.

MacPherson has said they are embarking on an audit to determine the accurate asset register, citing that there’s a need for the state to conceptualise what it wants to with its assets.

He has said following his visit there, it is clear the government does not use all the buildings and does not intend to do so.

“So, when we need to be optimising them, rationalising them and disposing of them, we call it what you will, but what we can’t allow is our buildings contribute to crime,” he said.

MacPherson says he can’t allow the buildings to continue to contribute to the high crime levels across the country.

Meanwhile, Sifiso Mdakane, the director general of the department, has said there is a continuous process to determine the number of hijacked buildings in the country.

“The minister highlighted the hijacked buildings, and it's a continuous process of identifying those buildings as well, because there is a cost duplication when we don't have that. I think we spent about R11.8 million per annum on aspects of securing those buildings,” Mdakane said.

Without revealing a plan, City of Joburg Human Settlements MMC Mlungisi Mabaso, speaking in an interview with Newzroom Afrika after fire claimed four lives, has said the City will take responsibility for the housing crisis in the increasingly populated inner city.

Meanwhile, Patriotic Alliance deputy leader and MMC for Roads and Transport, Kenny Kunene, has said the plan is to service the buildings once the illegal residents have been evicted while other buildings will be demolished.

Kunene made this statement while he was still acting mayor of the city in May 2023.

sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za

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