Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Housing in the City of Joburg Mlungisi Mabaso visited Dobsonville social and affordable housing this weekend to engage on matters on maintenance and rental collection issues at our facilities.
The visit forms part of his tenant education drive at Joshco facilities and follows several complaints by tenants about the substandard state of the units that have not been properly maintained despite raising these issues with building managers.
Mabaso expressed his disappointment in the manner in which the facility is taken care of despite it being relatively new and called on Joshco senior management to intervene urgently.
“It’s very embarrassing that is less than three years the facility is in this condition. The reality is there is no justification for the poor work that has been done here. I took this initiative to engage tenants so that we build this landlord-tenant relationship because there has been an issue with the operational management at Joshco so we had to intervene and close that gap,” said Mabaso.
Tenants have been airing their frustrations over the past few weeks on issues such as defects in some of the units and blocks, poor security and access control in the facility, among others.
MMC Mabaso promised that an occupancy audit will be conducted to establish who is living in the units.
“We will start doing new lease agreements for all the tenants from the end of March to regularise the residents and ensure rent collection is maximised.”
Joshco’s Acting Chief Operating Officer, Themba Mathibe, committed to residents that they will attend to all the issues raised.
The Dobsonville Project is one of the City’s Mega Social Housing Project developed and management by Joshco and it is partly funded by the Social Housing Regulatory Authority.
“It addresses one of the City’s key strategic priorities as the Multi-Party Government, which is to provide integrated human settlements.”
