Mashaba's action plan for hijacked buildings

ACTIONSA president Herman Mashaba wants to pick up from where he left off when he was Joburg mayor.

This after he, on Friday, 8 March, unveiled the party’s plan to ignite economic growth and address the country’s housing crisis by reclaiming highjacked and abandoned buildings, including factories across Mzansi.

As part of their election campaign, Mashaba said the work to do that has been built on the work he did as the City of Joburg mayor, where he got the council to approve the release of 154 properties and 37 abandoned factories to the private sector.

“When I launched the Inner-City Revitalisation Project in 2017, I had the vision of turning the city into a construction site. Had the 191 sites been fully developed, it would have resulted in an estimated R32 million in new investment in the city,” he said.

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He said but his resignation then as a mayor stalled the process.

“The importance of this project must be understood against the economic and housing crises facing South Africans, in a country where economic growth is at a dismal 0,6% and unemployment remains stagnant above 40%,” he said.

Mashaba said moreover, 30 years after democracy the ruling party’s RDP housing programme has failed to address the growing backlog in the country.

He said that his party will start to address this backlog by developing higher density housing opportunities in well-located areas close to economic opportunity.

The ActionSA leader made the announcement when the City of Joburg found itself struggling to deal with the influx of highjacked building across the inner city.

One of the highjacked building is the notorious Usindiso Building in Marshalltown, which caught fire in 2023 and claimed 77 lives, leaving others displaced.