The Gauteng government is preparing to sell all of its residential properties, including the premier’s official residence, in a vast portfolio that may include as many as 29000 properties.
State employees occupying houses belonging to the province were found to be paying below market-related rent of between R900 and R1500 a month.
The sale will include the premier’s official residence in Bryanston, which the DA’s Jack Bloom claims costs the Gauteng government R1.5-million a year to run and maintain. The first batch of houses will be sold in an online auction at the end of next month.
The properties represented a loss-making chapter for successive Gauteng governments.
At one point a deputy director in the department of community safety lived in a state-owned house in Pretoria for 18 years and only paid R900 a month rent.
Other properties have been vandalised or hijacked, and some allegedly sold to third parties.
Premier David Makhura said yesterday “the asset register and valuation of all government fixed property has now been completed”.
The department of infrastructure development was forced to admit in May 2013 that it could account for only 9800 of the 29000 buildings in the provincial government’s property portfolio.
A consortium led by Ernst & Young was tasked by the department to conduct an audit of provincial government-owned properties.
source: The Times