Mashaba slams Joburg’s latest plan to tackle hijacked buildings

By Johnathan Paoli

ActionSA leader and former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba has sharply criticised the City of Johannesburg’s latest strategy on hijacked buildings, arguing that the approach announced by Public Safety MMC Dr Mgcini Tshwaku risks entrenching criminality rather than restoring order, safety and dignity in the inner city.

Mashaba’s response follows Tshwaku’s announcement that the City is shifting away from mass evictions towards direct engagement and negotiation with tenants occupying hijacked and abandoned buildings in the Johannesburg CBD.

Tshwaku has said the City is tabulating outcomes from recent operations, including enforcement actions, tenant engagement and plans to address public health, housing and safety challenges linked to these properties.

Under the revised approach, Tshwaku said City officials would engage residents directly to understand the history and ownership of buildings, the reasons for their decay, and whether occupants could afford to pay rent.

He argued that if tenants committed to paying into a City-controlled account, the municipality could stabilise unsafe buildings, ensure rates and services are paid, and carry out basic engineering repairs without relocating residents.

However, Mashaba dismissed the proposal as “only good on paper and for political convenience”, warning that it ignores the reality of severe decay, organised crime and human rights abuses associated with many hijacked buildings.

“With utmost due respect to MMC Tshwaku, we can’t be a country that negotiates with criminals,” Mashaba said.

He argued that most inner-city hijacked buildings are structurally uninhabitable and pose serious long-term health risks to residents, particularly children forced to grow up in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.

“People live in a stench that is certainly going to affect their health in the long term, with young children brought up in such squalor, daily harassed by criminal syndicates,” Mashaba said.

He added that several buildings are used for serious crimes, including human