Building Hijacking – A Residents Perspective Part 1

Building Hijacking – A Residents Perspective Part 1
By
Moses Ka Moyo

In the past couple of months and weeks ,in the Inner-city we have woken up to fancy and encouraging newspaper headlines, most recently was “Joburg declares war on the building hijackers” , but there has been little or no attempts by those in authority, civic society or in the media to explain in layman terms what Building Hijacking entails, there is so much confusion around this term “building Hijacking” In May 2005 the Former president of the republic Thabo Mbeki entered the fray with stern words for the Hijackers “Some of these criminals are even brazen in their criminal activities to the extent that they even resort to murder so as to hijack buildings in order to extort money from our people .”We are nearing the end of 2009 and the Hijackers are still continuing to make more money and making many in the inner-city homeless and destitute .Recently the Gauteng MEC for community safety Mr. Khabisi Mosonkuthu, was clear that the time for government to act was now and they could not continue leaving the responsibility to the City of Johannesburg only, they will pounce and fall upon the Hijackers like a ton of bricks .This Statement has induced new levels of hope and residents are confident that for a change the provincial Government is serious in dealing with this act of crime and not look aside and wish this scourge will die own its own .

It is my aim in this article to paint a picture, which will in future help both the concerned and affected to understand the scourge of Building Hijacking in the inner-city and what modus operands is use and the impact and extent it has had in the decay of the Inner-city .Many imagine building hijackers moving into a building carrying all sorts of heavy weaponry and etc, it has not only improved, it has become sophisticated and advanced.

Who is a Building Hijacker?
This really depends on which side of the fence you are sitting, a Hijacker is an individual, individuals or a company that will collect money from residents in a building or house and not pay for council services, maintain the building, honour payments for service providers (simplified). Many have said the motive is to make more money on the part of the Hijackers, but alas I beg to differ, there is more than meets the eye – it’s an organised network with a very strong potential of making the country ungovernable. Below is one the most commonly used forms of Building Hijacking in the Inner-city. They come in different forms, shapes and size; I intend to unpack more as we continue with this series of Building Hijacking – a Residents Perspective.


Building Managers to Administrators
This form of Hijacking is prevalent in sectional title schemes , where trustees on behalf of the body corporate appoint a managing agent to run the building on their behalf ,before the trustees realize the building owe the City and service providers a lot of money ,when they communicate with the agent they are told he is addressing the issues and will revert back to them ,the council and service providers will continue sending statements and letter of demands , at some point services like water or electric are cut off ,leaving the Managing agent cornered and the residents waterless or in the dark ,in most cases residents will club money together and negotiate with the Service provider directly (City Power or Joburg Water) services will be restored and the wait for the managing agent to come and address them will just have begun ,when they eventually get hold of the managing agent ,he would have been to the High court and been appointed as Administrator of the building ,in most court documents they will cite lack of payment from the residents as cause for the admin order application. Once the administration order has been granted by the High court ,this is the advanced stage of the hijacking of the building as the order grants him all powers of the Body Corporate ,in short he becomes something higher than God in the Building everyone is at his/her mercy.



Levies are increased, special levies introduced, when residents mobilize themselves ,they are interdicted and any gathering in the building without the Administrator is A Treasonous OFFENCE –punishable by an eviction order application to the High court, a Security Company is then appointed that will bully residents to submission. The administrator will then introduces a mysterious investor who will then buy everyone off the scheme (one by one through a court procedure ) by the time the mysterious investor has bought 50% of the units in the scheme it starts dawning on the entire scheme that something is not right, the Hijacking of the building is complete, when they approach lawyers (by the way very few of them understand the act ) they are advised its going to be costly to contest ,and owners are then forced to sign lease agreements on properties they had bought many are women who bought into these schemes through the government subsidy. If they do Contest in many instances they lose in court, not because they do not have a strong legal compelling argument, but because the lawyers hand gets “greased” from both sides and he will throw the case or not pitch up in court altogether . In many instances the Court appointed administrators are so brazen in their efforts to own the building that they even buy the units in their own names showing clearly that they do not intend to use the admin order to revive the Body Corporate as spelt out in the act .In reality they run down the Scheme (building), appoint themselves as administrators and then buy the building for themselves at little or no costs to themselves, in a real world there should be a conflict of interest check ,but our courts do not care and keep on renewing their administartion orders,recently i dealt with a building on nugget street that has been under administration for nine years and nothing has changed save for the administrators portfolio that has risen to 28 units in a 36 unit scheme.

In the next edition of Building Hijacking – a Resident Perspective, I will unpack another blatant form of Building hijacking that is commonly and regularly used to disempowering many of their flats in the Inner-city of Johannesburg.

“A better inner-city is possible “


NB: Moses Ka Moyo is the Chairperson of the Friends of the Inner-city Forum (Writes in his personal capacity, Views expressed are not necessarily of the Friends of the Inner-city Forum).
And maybe contacted on +27 76 681 0577 bayethe@gmail.com or moses@inner-city-forum.org

Building hope in the inner city

Building hope in the inner city
By Bongani Nkosi

LIVING in Hillbrow and other inner city areas does not have to be a raw deal, a strong belief that inspires Friends of the Inner City Forum.



Friends of the Inner City was established in 2006 with an aim of protecting the rights of owners of sectional title properties. The forum has evolved into an award-winning civil organisation, with the Halala Joburg Award for Caring Joburg under its belt. The awards are organised by the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA).

"Sectional title property forms the core of what the forum does," explains the chairperson, Moses ka Moyo.

It believes that sectional title owners should play a meaningful role in the revival of the "city of gold", and it encourages the owners to recognise their responsibilities towards the wellbeing of Joburg.

"We want to encourage people to participate in the City's vision," Moyo explains. "We want them to play a role in providing a clean and safe inner city."

Sectional title properties in the inner city are generally flats owned by the occupants, most of whom have lived in Johannesburg for many years. They bought their flats mostly in the 1990s, when the original owners were moving out to the suburbs.

Friends of the Inner City "encourages them to pay for council services", Moyo points out. It organises meetings with owners, tenants, managing agents and various stakeholders to discuss, among other issues, levy documents and payment of general services. "We try to put everything in layman's terms ... we want them to understand what the City intends to do."

Sectional title buildings are prone to "building hijackings", which usually involves managing agents using shoddy tactics to divert money meant to be paying council services. Moyo is at pains to explain that residents do pay for their services, but part of the problem is that they are not able to pay directly to the City.



Management
While the managing agents are appointed by building trustees, at most properties the rightful owners are unknown. "The biggest problem is that everyone is in dispute of these buildings. We don't know who owns them."

The forum recently saved residents of Worcester Court on Smit Street from eviction. The Johannesburg High Court ruled against a private company that the approximately 400 residents "do not need to be evicted".

"The residents [of Worcester Court] will now be able to pay for services directly to the City of Johannesburg," Moyo says. "About 400 people would have been left homeless."

Campaigns
Friends of the Inner City, which has about 3 000 volunteers, is steeped in community work. The organisation conducts sectional title training to help owners establish body corporates to take control of their buildings.

It's also a leading voice in clean-up campaigns in the inner city. One of its assumed ongoing cleaning projects is Lorna Court on the corner of Twist and Wolmarans streets. The building, facing a state-of-the-art Rea Vaya bus terminal, burnt down in May 2006.

An incident in which one person burned to death and a baby dramatically fell into the hands of passer-by Michael Ndlovu, it left scores of people homeless.

Moyo says the forum is working with flat owners to revive Lorna Court. The roof is the biggest component that needs repair, he states. "We've started to clean it up, with residents that used to stay there ... Once we do the roofing we'll be able to move forward."

The forum is also registering a co-operative that will involve inner city "residents who have not benefited from government housing subsidies". The co-op already has 357 Region F residents who would be beneficiaries, and it is looking for a vacant building to buy.

"Whichever building we get, we will be able to create jobs."

A newspaper, to be called the Inner City Gazette, is also in the pipeline. A free community newspaper, it will focus on telling the stories of people living in Region F.

Plans to launch a radio station, to be named Inner City FM, are also advancing. "The station would give people a platform to speak," Moyo explains. "Most of the problems are created by lack of information, and the station would bridge that gap."

Already a full agenda, its work does not end there. Friends of the Inner City is also working to set up a foundation to get more inner city youth enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand.

The JDA recognised the forum with the award as it "facilitates community co-operation, bringing communities together and making the inner city a better place to live through gradual build up and restoration of trust, creating mutually sustainable relationships between agents, tenants and building owners".