On 16 January, the City of Johannesburg led a Buya Mthetho operation in Fourways which led to the discovery of almost R9 million in lost revenue. The operation was led by Buya Mthetho director, Lufuno Mashau, and the City’s COO Floyd Brink.
“This is as a result of illegal connections to the City’s services since 2015. The three properties, which were visited today, were also found not to have complied with the City’s bylaws and were fined,” said MMC for Finance, Funzela Ngobeni.
The operation found that some of the properties had water and sewer accounts which were not registered with the City and therefore not billed for the last three years. It was also found that one of the properties did not have an occupation certificate. The City has since issued a 14-days’ notice for the property owners to comply.
“Despite residents occupying the 300-unit property, an occupation certificate was never issued at the said property, meaning residents are living in this property illegally. Furthermore, this means the property is not correctly evaluated by the City without an occupation certificate,” said Ngobeni.
Ngobeni said the amount of revenue lost due to illegal connections amounts to billions lost annually and hinders the delivery of services across Johannesburg.
“Through Operation Buya Mthetho, the City will make every attempt to recover what we have lost during the development of these three properties,” he said.
-
-
-
-
