About 1,300 government-owned buildings around the country are illegally occupied and a worried public works & infrastructure minister Patricia de Lille says this means they cannot be optimally used.
Her department continues to pay rates and taxes on these properties and cannot raise revenue from them.
Some of the cities affected by these illegal occupations include Bloemfontein (40 properties), Cape Town (134), Durban (540), Johannesburg (109), Kimberley (68), Mmabatho (117), Mthatha (23), Mbombela (110), Polokwane (32), Gqeberha (101) and Pretoria (56).
“It is very worrying that the amount of government properties that are illegally invaded is actually increasing on a day-to-day basis,” De Lille said in a reply to a question by DA MP Samantha Graham in the National Assembly last week during a question-and-answer session with the economic cluster of ministers.
The department’s real estate management services branch continues to conduct site inspections of these properties and has appointed an independent service provider which will begin work in January to assess each of them and assist the department to get eviction orders where necessary. Evictions require a court order.
The service provider will also be required to regularise leases to ensure that revenue is being generated, conduct forensic investigations into properties that have been illegally transferred and investigate the debt owed to the department as a result of the illegal occupations.
“We hope that with the help from this service provider for the rest of the financial year and next year we will be able to tackle most of these illegal invasions,” De Lille said.
She conceded there was a possibility that the buildings would be reinvaded once the evictions had taken place. The department would note what the land had been zoned for and offer it to either the local municipality, metropolitan council or provincial government to take over.
Some MPs were concerned about the eviction by the government of the poor and homeless and it is possible that its attempts to do so will be met with protests.
In terms of the Disaster Management Act under which the regulations governing the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are gazetted, a ban was placed on evictions which could be an obstacle to attempts to remove the illegal occupants of government-owned property. The regulations give more protection to renters who are unable to pay their rent due to Covid-19-induced financial difficulties.
The relevant government gazette states that “all evictions and execution of attachment orders, both movable and immovable, including the removal of movable assets and sales in execution is suspended with immediate effect for the duration of the lockdown”.
Some experts say landlords can apply to the court to evict tenants during the lockdown and the court can hear the application, but an eviction order granted cannot be executed during the lockdown unless the court specifically orders that this can happen on the grounds that it is just and equitable.
The homeless have taken advantage of this new dispensation. In the 12 months since the start of the lockdown last year, 50 new informal settlements sprang up in Cape Town with between 30,000 and 40,000 new shacks being erected on various areas including public land.
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