JOHANNESBURG – The problem with building hijackings in Joburg’s inner city is an issue woven in complexity, one that is strung together by the exploitation of a 2011 Constitutional Court ruling, with the human rights of the marginalised being upheld by NPOs.
This ultimately leaves private property owners and investors with very little recourse in reclaiming these illegally occupied “ticking time bombs.”
Non-profit organisations such as the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (Seri) are widely seen as stumbling blocks in getting eviction orders for illegal occupants of buildings.
A source, who has decades of experience in dealing with hijacked buildings, says Seri is allowing bad buildings within the inner city to thrive.
“Inadvertently Seri are allowing hundreds of thousands of people to live in conditions that are completely inhumane and they are allowing hijackers to collect hundreds of millions of rands throughout the fiscal year in rental collections in these bad buildings.”
But the institute claims it’s been left with no choice but to try and get the city to comply with providing temporary emergency accommodation.
Seri’s Edward Molopi: “I think sometimes the misconception is that we are allowing or forcing people to stay there. We are not making that choice for people. People come to us and they tell us ‘they are going to throw us out on the street and we would like to have an alternative.'”
It also says it represents thousands of illegal occupants, the majority South Africans, as well as some undocumented foreign nationals.