Ward 112 councillor Lerato Mphefo demands that Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) take care of all the properties they own in the city. This comes after Mphefo, together with Bongani Nkomo, Shadow MMC for Economic Development, and Vino Reddy and Otto Kgeletsane, both Section 79 Economic Development Committee members, visited an alleged JPC-owned property in Crowthorne on August 11.

Mphefo said she had visited the property before, notifying JPC of the businesses running inside the building. She said they have nothing against small businesses. In fact, they want these kinds of businesses to flourish, but they would like them to follow the right process, rather than paying unknown persons who do not have a lease agreement with the city.

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Nkomo said they found a total of four businesses, paying monthly rent to a person they have not been able to identify. “We will be investigating, in terms of who this person is. We have also been told that these businesses have been here for about four years, paying a sum of about R3 000 per month – money that should be going to JPC and the city, to plough back into service delivery and maintenance of other properties.”

He said that the Section 79 Economic Development Committee knows that maintenance of JPC-owned properties remains a big issue, and this is just one example that highlights the bigger problem.

Reddy, Ward 93 councillor and Section 79 member, said it was really alarming, simply because JPC has completed an audit of all their buildings. “They own over 10 000 buildings, and they claim to know everyone.

The fact that they don’t know that they also own this one is really shocking. How many more of these properties are going unaccounted for? How much revenue is the city losing because it’s not being collected? JPC should account for issues like this.”

JPC spokesperson Lucky Sindane referred the paper to the city’s Group Forensic and Investigative Services (GFIS) with regard to hijacked properties. “Their department should be able to give you stats, the process that is followed when a building is hijacked, and how the city wins it back.”

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City of Johannesburg spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane said GFIS received a complaint of allegation of property hijacking around April 2024.
“The department is still investigating allegation of property hijacking.

As part of the investigations, people who are conducting businesses in the property, were interviewed with the intention of obtaining their statements. Currently, GFIS is unable to confirm whether the allegations are correct or not since the matter is still under investigation.

This means that the next actions will be determined by the outcomes of the investigations,” said Modingaone.

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