Police unit is evicted from Marburg premises

The Port Shepstone SAPS Vehicle Identification and Safeguarding unit has been dealt a major blow – it has been ordered to vacate its Marburg premises in terms of a court order secured by Silvermoon Investments, which owns the property.

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This move will see the SAPS Rescue unit, Vehicle Identification and Safeguarding unit and the Tactical Response and Training unit (which serves the entire Umzimkhulu area and Port Shepstone) seeking alternative premises.

In a recent judgment, the Durban High Court ordered that should the police units fail to vacate the premises within 30 days, the sheriff will be ordered to evict them.

Sean Naidoo of Silvermoon Investments and the Port Shepstone Vehicle Identification Section (VIS) have been embroiled in a lease agreement and rent dispute for years.

Staff has on numerous occasions been locked out due to nonpayment of rent by the department of public works.

It is believed that Mr Naidoo had not been paid rent for several months and issued a notice of termination to the SAPS Vehicle Identification Section (VIS) on February 26, 2017.

He has also laid charges against the chief investigator of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and an independent architect regarding fraudulent claims made against Silvermoon Investments.

Mr Naidoo said that, despite numerous written requests to the department of public works to address the issue of the unsigned lease agreement, the matter had dragged on since 2013 and the department had blatantly ignored all his attempts to resolve the ongoing problems.

In her judgement, Judge Mokgere Masipa said that Silvermoon Investments had set out a fairly simple case proving its ownership of the property and had indicated that the property was occupied by the police units at the insistence of the department of public works, which is in charge of procuring property that is to be used by state organs.

According to the judgment, there was one lease agreement that was concluded between the property owner and the police and public works which expired in December 2017.

The court found that there were conditions attached to a second lease that were not fulfilled and which rendered the contract void.

ALSO READ : SAPS vehicle unit locked out again as matter drags on and on

Therefore the property owner was within his rights to ask the police to vacate.

The judgment stated that the parties had an acrimonious relationship with the department of public works, claiming that rent had been overpaid due to incorrect property size estimates and a counterclaim by the property owner that rent had not been paid. Judgment on these issues is still pending.

On Wednesday this week, Mr Naidoo said, “I will be waiting for my keys.”

Comment is awaited from provincial spokesman, Colonel Thembeka Mbele on where the unit will moved to.

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