Gauteng MEC for Infrastructure Development Ms Qedani Mahlangu is calling on all occupants of state residential and commercial property who are currently not paying market related rentals to approach the department’s Corner House Headquarters in Johannesburg, to discuss regularising their status.
MEC Mahlangu has also called on occupants who are not paying market related rentals and who are unhappy about the standard of state residential property they occupy, to seek quotations, quantify and carry out the required improvements.
Mahlangu says tenants who carry out upgrades to the properties they occupy, will be granted a six months grace period during which they will not be expected to pay market related rentals, in lieu of expenditure on the renovations. Market related rentals will then kick in at the end of the grace period.
The MEC has emphasised however, that the scope of the upgrades to state properties must first be approved by the department before any work is carried out. A team of professionals from the department will monitor the renovations carried out in line with this special dispensation, to ensure that work carried out at state properties is of acceptable quality.
MEC Mahlangu has also appealed to occupants who are currently paying market related rentals to continue doing so. She has warned that occupants of government residential and commercial property who refuse to pay market related rentals will be evicted.
MEC Mahlangu urges occupants to take advantage of the department’s grace period before market related rentals are enforced.
“If people are not amenable to that, we’ll definitely evict them because we are losing rental. You find people living in suburbs like Bryanston in Johannesburg, yet expecting to pay R500, that is ridiculous and it’s not going to be tolerated” said MEC Mahlangu.
MEC Mahlangu has also warned occupants of state commercial and residential property that a strict lease regime is to be enforced, to stamp out the practice of occupants who either have no valid lease or pay no rental for the properties from which they trade or reside.
“No one is allowed to stay in property without a valid lease signed with the department irrespective of who they are” stressed MEC Mahlangu.
The Department of Infrastructure Development is mandated to among others; ‘Manage the provincial property portfolio for the optimum benefit of all citizens with an emphasis on maximising access, utilisation and value.’
MEC Mahlangu will be unflinching in executing that mandate for the benefit of all Gauteng citizens.
The Department of Infrastructure Development is currently in the process of identifying a suitable service provider with a credible track record to see to the conclusion of the task of compiling its asset register. This will go a long way towards enhancing the value realised from the more than 31 000 provincial government properties.
For further enquiries please contact:
Thulasizwe Simelane, MEC Qedani Mahlangu’s spokesperson
Cell: 081 031 3518
Tel: 011 355 5004
E-mail: Thulasizwe.Simelane@gauteng.gov.za
