After an ongoing battle of about four years, the Ekurhuleni Housing Company (EHCO) evicted three tenants of a municipal-owned housing unit in Germiston, in compliance with the eviction court warrant granted by the magistrate’s court, on November 24.
EHCO holds the metro’s rental housing portfolio, which includes newly built stock and already existing properties.
The tenants are three of 30 who failed to settle their arrears with EHCO in 2017.
According to Ekurhuleni metro spokesperson Zweli Dlamini, the court initially granted an order for the tenants to settle their arrears with EHCO, an entity of the metro.
In October 2020, to recover the outstanding monies, EHCO returned for an intervention and won the case against the three tenants.
“Although the warrant to execute the evictions was granted in October 2020, it could not be affected due to Covid-19 regulations, which prevented evictions from being implemented,” Dlamini explained.
“However, with the country now being on lockdown level one, the court in September granted EHCO the go-ahead to carry out the evictions.
“The company has been embroiled in a long-standing process to recover rental arrears from a total of 30 defaulting tenants. The remaining 27 tenants have not yet been evicted because their matters are still before the court.”
The CEO of EHCO, Bongani Molefe, has emphasised that without the revenue generated from the rental of these units, the housing company is unable to maintain the metro’s social housing stock.
Molefe explained the rental arrears incurred by the company has now escalated to about R67-million.
“EHCO wishes to clarify that the evictions are not politically driven, but they are a mere administrative process carried out by EHCO to ensure a better quality of life for beneficiaries,” he explained.
“What is unfolding now is part of the company’s normal credit control process to ensure the company remains afloat but at the same can maintain its infrastructure and properties to the benefit of the end-user.”
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