NOWinSA exclusive, Johannesburg, South Africa – join us as we take you behind the scenes of shocking living conditions inside Johannesburg’s abandoned buildings, courtesy of City of Johannesburg (COJ).
Here thousands of squatters live in life-threatening, crowded conditions with their families – mostly without water and proper sanitation. To our disbelief, we were shocked to find – as shown in the picture and video below – an infant left attended and lying down inside a small room in a chaotic scene of filth, along with two toddlers.
City of Joburg to enforce evacuation
Speaking exclusively to NOWinSA multimedia specialist Temoso Mokoena during a scheduled building inspection programme, Joburg MMC for Public Safety Mgcini Tshwaku said the city is working hard to enforce evacuation – and not evictions – which is often a last resort which prioritises moving people to safe location due to the real risk posed by the buildings to occupants/public safety and health.
The unlawful occupation of inner-city buildings in South Africa has led to a number of legal disputes not only between vulnerable occupiers and individual landowners, but also between the courts and the South African government, with the latter largely blamed for the failure to give effect to its housing obligation as provisioned by the Constitution – as outlined in this journal by SAFLII.
On how COJ plans to make up the leeway at this stage, and follow on the footsteps of the City of Tshwane’s somewhat successful plan to fight hijacked and illegally occupied buildings in Pretoria CBD, he said: “Simple. We went to court, they said ‘if you see a building of this nature, you can evacuate’.There’s no issue.”
The problem, however,, “is the issue of alternative accommodation, he tells us. “We are working on it … But you see, Tshwane is able to take the people away because most of the people are not from South Africa. And there’s no provision in South Africa to provide any alternative accommodation for people from outside. Of course, you must be humane,” he said referring to the ‘soft approach’ Joburg is taking. “You must keep them in temporary shelter. And then you must be able to check in terms of how can you link them up with their people (families) from home and then what can be done.”
