Undercover unit appointed to find building hijackers in Joburg CBD
The city's probe into hijacked buildings led investigators to rogue lawyers.
Police and security keep watch outside the building in Marshalltown where a fire claimed 77 lives. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen
Johannesburg Safety MMC Mgcini Tshwaku says the city has appointed an undercover unit to unearth who is behind the hijacking of buildings in the CBD.
This comes after the city’s probe into hijacked buildings led investigators to rogue lawyers, who allegedly went into the Deeds Office to irregularly change the owners’ details and revoke their ownership.
Tshwaku made this revelation during a sting by City Power this week, claiming a lawyer residing in Florida was among those implicated in the hijacking of buildings in the CBD.
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Speaking to Newzroom Afrika on Thursday, he said the undercover unit would work with the public safety team.
“We have been inundated with calls and emails from people who came forward and implicated some lawyers. One lawyer has been working with the syndicate and we still have to confirm how they are able to go to the Deeds Office to manipulate the system,” Tshwaku said.
Some of the real owners of the hijacked buildings were given a court order of eviction without their knowledge, he said.
He said the undercover unit’s focus would be to identify which buildings had been hijacked and find out if the people occupying them were paying rent and to whom were they paying it to.
Risk assessment
Tshwaku also called for a risk assessment of buildings in the CBD after several “mind-boggling” fires.
“One of the things we are going to call for is that each and every building must do a fire risk and safety assessment to check because these fires are mind-boggling,” he said.
“Here [the Sars building] is a basement, an archiving area and no one goes in there, but it caught fire. We really need to check what is happening.”
Commission of inquiry
A commission of inquiry into the fire at the Usindiso Building, where 77 people died, has been appointed in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi said the primary objective of the commission was to conduct a comprehensive investigation to uncover potential factors contributing to the tragic incident.
“We felt a complete and comprehensive probe was necessary to mitigate the chances of something similar happening again.
“It [commission] will be allowed to conduct its work without any undue political interference from anyone and will be given all the necessary logistical support by the Gauteng Provincial Government,” said Lesufi.
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