OPERATION Buya Mthetho- bring back the law- is in full swing in Johannesburg.
The Group Forensic and Investigation Services (GFIS) is working in tandem with other stakeholders to inform and educate property owners to be vigilant as property hijackers are on a prowl.
And some of the City officials have their hands in the cookie jar.
According to the City’s investigate services, this occurrence happens during peak seasons.
“Remember, people come to Johannesburg to acquire assets then come December time, we go and visit our families. They will come, pose as the rightful owners. They have connections everywhere within the city, police officers etc,” commented Lucky Sindane, GFIS’s spokesperson.
“They work with government officials. When they come to you they produce legit documents and fool tenants into thinking they are the rightful owners,” he continued.
His department conducted an audit to ascertain how many properties had been hijacked, how many belong to the City and they traced those that belong to private owners who are no longer in the City, including suburbs and townships.
“If you travel around the inner city of Johannesburg you’ll see a lot of abandoned buildings of which the owners cannot be traced. Some of them cannot be traced because you’d find, for instance the building is worth R3 million but owes rates and taxes of R6 million,” he said.
“So the owners would abandon those buildings because they see no value. So what we do as a City, working with other departments, we trace the owners and try to release the buildings to be redeveloped,” said Sindane.
“We will win this war, it will take time but we will get there,” he said.
As part of Buya Mthetho, Sindane has thanked and also encouraged citizens who have faith in the department by coming forward to be assisted after being failed by the cops.
