Daily Maverick
Dailymaverick logo

DM168

DM168

Public Works is on a mission to reclaim its hijacked buildings

Public Works is on a mission to reclaim its hijacked buildings
The Telkom Towers buildings in Pretoria during an oversight visit on 1 August 2024. It is reported that the department bought the building in 2016, but it has been vandalised and has become a den for criminal activities. (Photo: Deaan Vivier / Beeld / Gallo Images)
Suné Payne and Siyabonga Goni
By Suné Payne and Siyabonga Goni
13 Oct 2024
Facebook
3
The department’s efforts will include working with municipalities and Human Settlements to release land for projects such as housing. The department has 272 hijacked buildings countrywide.

Since his appointment as Public Works and Infrastructure Minister in June, Dean Macpherson has been on a mission to reclaim Public Works properties, which include hijacked state buildings, for public good.

During an interview with Daily Maverick this week, Macpherson touched on several aspects: reclaiming hijacked buildings, working with various entities and, of course, the country’s land asset register.

He believes his department owns 88,000 buildings across 5 million hectares countrywide. These are assets valued at R150-billion – which could be contested. Macpherson said that when he started looking at municipal valuation rolls, “some of these valuations are a third and a half below what they should be on some of these properties”.

Macpherson said a brand-new asset register could not be done as “we just don’t have that kind of time”. However, a series of leveraging and retention exercises would be undertaken to look at assets that could be retained, disposed of or sold.

“So as we try to extract the maximum value out of our best, most valuable assets, we then have to start to generate cash by disposing of those that are non-core,” he said.

Hijacked buildings


Hijacked buildings An old damaged fishery manufacturing building that employed Hout Bay workers. (Photo: Siyabonga Goni)



A view of 104 Darling Street in Cape Town during an oversight visit by Dean Macpherson and Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in September 2024. (Photo: Siyabonga Goni)



Since taking office, Macpherson has visited several Public Works buildings, including some that have been hijacked. Countrywide, there are 272 hijacked buildings belonging to the department.

“I think it’s through neglect and it’s through a lack of pride in our public buildings. Thirdly, it’s also through an excessive [number] of buildings that we own,” Macpherson said.

Read more: Johannesburg CBD fire — What it looks like inside the city’s hijacked buildings

One example of reclaiming a hijacked building by working together with a municipality is the eviction and planned revamp of 104 Darling Street in the Cape Town CBD. It is the only hijacked Public Works building in the CBD.

Macpherson visited the site in September along with officials and media. During the visit, Daily Maverick saw a group of informal dwellers in a filthy environment. Flies were everywhere at the entrance to the building. People were cooking outside on an open fire. The building does not have electricity.

Daily Maverick spoke to several people who said they lived at the site and collected items such as cans, plastic bottles and cardboard to sell for recycling.

Llewellyn Kesner has lived in the building for more than six years. “There is only one tap,” he told Daily Maverick.

According to the Public Works department, the state entered into lease agreements with a private individual in 1999. However, the individual failed to honour his lease obligations. This resulted in several years of attempts at eviction, which finally occurred in November 2010. At the same time, the individual was allowed to sublease, which resulted in 13 sublessees who had been living in the building. They were not included in the original eviction and thus continued to occupy the premises.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the City’s law enforcement had tried to secure the property. An eviction process is now under way, and the occupiers at the site have been offered spaces at the City’s Safe Spaces shelters in the CBD, according to a presentation provided by the City to journalists.

Hill-Lewis said that, although the property was too small for the creation of social housing, the building could be “used for something that is special”.

This is being disputed by housing organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi. It told Daily Maverick that there used to be flats on the site but they started to deteriorate as soon as the landlord stopped maintaining the building.

According to Macpherson, the department will embark on a programme to reclaim its hijacked buildings. “We will start to do so property by property,” he said.

This process includes getting eviction orders, which has already begun at places such as 104 Darling Street, as well as on Public Works land near the Cape Town Castle, which has seen an influx of homeless people and tents since the Covid pandemic.

“The problem is it’s also very expensive … we have to go to court every time. We have to brief lawyers,” Macpherson said.

Asked whether his department could assist desperate people who have found themselves in hijacked buildings, Macpherson said: “Government can’t work with [those living in the buildings] or the ringleaders who hijack buildings and then exploit individuals to stay in those buildings.

“I have immense sympathy for people who are actually being exploited and they are victims in this … They pay money; they are often [subjected] to crime, drugs, human trafficking … All sorts of awful things go on in those buildings.”

At the same time, the situation could not be allowed to continue, said Macpherson, who could not confirm whether there were links between politicians and organised syndicates in hijacked buildings.

“I’m not an investigator, but what I can tell you is that often the moment that we’re going to do something with a building or a piece of land, you know, all of a sudden these places are invaded,” he said.

Leases to entities


Hijacked buildings The Telkom Towers buildings in Pretoria during an oversight visit on 1 August 2024. It is reported that the department bought the building in 2016, but it has been vandalised and has become a den for criminal activities. (Photo: Deaan Vivier / Beeld / Gallo Images)



In a follow-up, Macpherson also addressed another concern: government entities leasing from the private sector and not using the government buildings managed by his department. “The national Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, which I am responsible for, serves 43 ‘clients’, which consist of national departments and some entities,” he said. “Currently, we have 2,273 leases with private landlords.”  

Read more: Shocking mismanagement, overspending revealed as public works misses 80% of its targets in 2022/23

He said: “I am working to move client departments back into state-owned properties to remove the [number] of lease agreements required.”

He said the budget for lease agreements for the 2024/2045 financial year is R6.1-billion, “but work is under way to reduce the number of lease agreements the state concluded before I was appointed to the portfolio”.

Since being appointed, he has asked the Special Investigating Unit to seek a presidential proclamation to investigate lease agreements with the department’s top 10 landlords “to ensure that these were not rented out at inflated prices or that any corruption was in­­volved when they were awarded”. DM

Additional reporting by Michelle Banda.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

Categories:

Tags: