Citing his end of term report Mashaba says he fired corrupt officials and renovated buildings. Now wants to finish unfinished work.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba says if he becomes City of Joburg mayor, he will reclaim the hijacked buildings and lease them to the private sector to create job opportunities.
Mashaba made this comment during a recent gathering held at the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg.
Mashaba promises to reclaim hijacked buildings
He was outlining his plans on how he would fix the city should he become the mayor once again of South Africa’s biggest city.
“During my time as a mayor, I fought the hijacking of buildings in the city.
“If I can return as mayor, I will reclaim the properties, renovate them and lease them to the private sector.
“Those buildings have the capacity to generate revenue and create employment. One of the hijacked buildings I took back was renovated and, as I’m talking to you, it is accommodating students.”
Mashaba said his capitalist mindset is what was needed to turn the dilapidated hijacked buildings into money generating machines.
Capitalist mindset
“Yes, I am a capitalist and that is why the EFF always had a problem with it during my time as mayor,” said Mashaba.
He has also promised to fight criminals who are demanding protection fees from business owners, which is a scourge across the country.
He accused undocumented people of playing a role in hijacking buildings and committing crimes.
“In my government, we will collect all undocumented foreigners and dump them at the home affairs head office to show them they failed to do their job.
“When we visited hijacked buildings, we found many undocumented foreign nationals accommodated there.”
‘Don’t be kind on illegal immigrants issue’
Mashaba has urged the government not to be kind when addressing the illegal immigrants issue, as they are taking advantage of this.
The politician also vowed to fight against the slumification of Johannesburg suburbs.
A recent investigation by The Citizenfound most of the people apparently responsible for turning Ferndale in Randburg into a squatter camp were foreign nationals.
Residents who complained said some of the houses were bought by Nigerian nationals, some of which reportedly use as brothels.
Mashaba said before leaving as mayor of Joburg, he prepared an end-of-term report detailing all his successes.
End-of-term report
He said the issues mentioned in the report were in line with the auditor-general’s findings on how the municipality performed during his time.
“The report is available for everyone and when you check it, you will see I did a good job. I was the first mayor who managed to prepare such a report.”
He added that during his time, he fired many corrupt officials and also took initiatives to address many issues. But he unfortunately left office before finalising the project.
Support Local Journalism
Add The Citizen as a Preferred Source on Google and follow us on Google News to see more of our trusted reporting in Google News and Top Stories.