Illegal dwellers living in a hijacked building in Blood Street, Pretoria West, will soon be evicted by the City of Tshwane in line with its “Reclaim Our City Programme.”
On Wednesday Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya led a team of City of Tshwane by-law enforcement team to a hijacked building which is rightfully owned by the City of Tshwane, but is presently occupied by illegal dwellers.
“Over 300 shacks have been built inside a city-owned property in Bloed Street with residents paying rent to an unknown landlord,” said the Mayor.
“Reclaiming hijacked City of Tshwane buildings is important to avoid the kind of disaster that took place in Joburg in August 2023, whereby over 50 people died when the Usindiso building they were living in caught fire,” she explained.
Dr Moya pointed out that the Bloed Street building has now been turned into a mini-informal settlement by people living in the shacks therein.
“There are pregnant women and children living in the hijacked building and obviously as the City we must do something about this state of affairs,” said Moya.
“We have issued people staying there with a notice to evict them and we will rope in the Department of Home Affairs, SAPS as well as our Department of Social Development to assist us in this regard,” she said.
Moya said the people living in the hijacked Bloed Street building in Pretoria West have connected water and electricity illegally, yet the building is actually not a place where people are supposed to live.
“This is one of the issues that have driven us to embark on the Reclaim Our City Programme,”she said.
Moya revealed that inside the building there is a pregnant woman from Mozambique who is very sick and should therefore not be living under the conditions that are prevalent at the Bloed Street building.
“There’s lots of lawlessness happening in the hijacked properties of the City and the more we ignore this matter, the more this problem becomes bigger,” she said.