Durban — Officials in eThekwini Municipality are trying to locate the kingpin who has “hijacked” a building in Bertha Mkhize (Victoria) Street. During a joint safety and security operation on Tuesday night, city officials revealed that 17 undocumented people were arrested in the building.
The operation, spearheaded by the Inner eThekwini Regeneration and Urban Management Programme (iTrump), has been tackling the issue of buildings that are problematic, derelict and do not abide by the city by-laws in terms of accommodation.
Last year, the city had more than 90 problem buildings.
iTrump manager Hoosen Moolla considered the monthly integrated operations as disruptive.
Simultaneous raids on nine buildings in the Durban CBD and eight in the Point Precinct took place. City officials from various departments including water, environmental health, electricity, metro police, fire and emergency services, business licences and part of the area-based management programme, converged on the buildings.
“The operation has its successes. Recently, we received reports of buildings being hijacked or forcibly taken over. We found that some of these people are not from within the borders of South Africa. When we arrived … it appears many people living in the building fled their rooms hastily,” Moolla said.
The city’s concern is that people are living in cramped environments in makeshift partitioned rooms without proper ventilation, ablution facilities or fire escapes. In some instances, open-plan buildings are divided and rooms are created. Each room is occupied by four people in some buildings.
Moolla warned that if owners continued to be non-compliant, the city would look at other measures, such as going to court or changing the rates code on a building, where rates are multiplied nine times, which then has financial implications for property owners.
Daily News