Some dude in Orange Grove decided to add 18 rooms onto his house so he could let these out at some later stage and make his investment in property pay for itself and possibly even generate some extra income too.
Paddy Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com
He didn’t have the necessary planning permission but that didn’t seem to matter much and anyway the council says it’s powerless to stop him.
At the same time, those developers and investors who have ploughed millions of rands into the inner city areas of Joburg are facing such problems with the council that they have decided to pay what they believe they owe for rates, taxes and services and take the council to court if it cuts off their supplies for non-payment.
Various developers have already done so and in each case they have not only forced the council to reconnect them but have also been awarded costs against the council, which predictably has not yet paid these.
At the same time there are tens of thousands of Joburg residents who have protested vociferously about the tardy running of the council and its inability to get something so simple, such as providing correct invoices, right.
And the council itself wants some sympathy from residents and investors because, it says, it has more than a million accounts that have to be sent out each month.
In yet another startling admission the council conceded that the power outages in a range of city suburbs were a direct result of the illegal connections that have been made to the electricity grid.
Everything, it seems, leads back to the council’s own inefficiency and its inability to do anything properly the first time and to get it right every time after that.
What we have instead is a litany of excuses – whether it is that people are inadequately trained; they don’t have the necessary skills or that computers, not people, are to blame for the billing mess.
And all of these are just excuses because, in the case of Joburg, there is no buck and it doesn’t have to stop anywhere – it just gets passed along from one bureaucratic official to another.
Then I pop along to Cape Town and discover that there is a completely different picture in that city.
Its highways are patrolled and its taxi drivers comply with the law. Most of the time they are driving new taxis because the old ones have been pulled off the road. Taxis don’t invade the bus lanes or travel on the yellow-line highway verge.
Cape Town’s electricity grid works and if you dial the call centre your call is answered and your query is resolved almost immediately. Cape Town’s central city is clean, the roads are in good shape, the beaches are spic and span and the city itself is thriving.
When there is a dispute, the dispute is dealt with and resolved so the citizens of Cape Town can get on with their business.
Cape Townworks. Joburg doesn’t.
Yet Joburg is the economic hub of South Africa where most of the money is generated and where millions of people are living and should be thriving. Where the opportunities are huge and the scale of enterprise is among the best in the land.
Joburg is where businesses thrive – despite the council – and where patriotic investors are determined to plough their own money back into the economy to make it a better place for everyone.
So what can we do about our failing economic hub?
Start with the city itself and make some fundamental changes by firing the incompetent people who are running Joburg at the moment. Move them out entirely or second them to the private sector where they can learn to do an honest day’s work.
For the poor administration of this city is a real tragedy, particularly when I see members of the Property Owners’ and Managers’ Association (Poma) doing such great work by converting derelict buildings into habitable units that are affordable for all.
The Johannesburg Development Agency is also working flat out to rejuvenate the city centre and encourage investors to have faith in the future of this city. Yet their efforts are completely undermined by the council’s revenue department, which disconnects services to buildings even though accounts are paid and the courts have upheld this position.
Perhaps it’s time for someone like Trevor Manuel and his National Planning Commission to set about tackling the real problems that face South Africa, starting with the city of Joburg.
Rather than working on a national strategy for the country, perhaps he can start at the bottom and set about solving the problems in our metropolitan councils and their inability to meet the needs of the people.
National strategies are all well and good if the country is operating like clockwork – but are meaningless when even the most simple task, like being correctly billed for the amount of electricity you’ve used, cannot be done.
When the level of illegal electricity connections are sufficient to plunge entire neighbourhoods into darkness and nobody does anything to terminate the electricity thieves and their supplies.
Clearly Joburg itself is incapable of solving its problems – this is patently obvious from the deterioration everywhere – so national government needs to get involved and force the city to change.
The people currently running the city are clearly incapable of doing so. Their actions have proved this.
So why not fire the lot of them and employ a fresh set of skills, with proven ability, who can move into the city hall and get the city running smoothly.
It might mean elevated salaries, it might even prompt a rates increase, but if the city is efficient then everyone would gladly pay. Attract the necessary skills by whatever means you can and invest in training if you have to, but start getting it right because the consequences of not doing so are too horrendous to contemplate.
So come on Trevor Manuel and your colleagues in the National Planning Commission: Put together a plan so that Joburg can survive.
That way investments will flow into the city and investors will put their own money into Joburg instead of taking it away to other communities that are thriving, efficient and properly run.
Like Cape Town.
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn’t pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him via email.
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