Cllrs want proper care of GCC stalls
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Thursday June 23, 2016 15:34
The call by a number of councillors came after the mayor Kagiso Thutlwe briefed the full council meeting on Monday that there are cases of illegal occupancy and non-payment of rentals.
Commenting on the mayor’s speech yesterday, Sebele ward councillor Lesego Mabego noted that some tenants are no longer occupying the stalls and their whereabouts are unknown.
“Instead they had rented them out to other people at a high rate. What happens is, those occupants pay rent to the initial tenants.
It is very important for council to check with the current occupants where they are paying their rental,” Mabego said.
“Again council had agreed with market stalls occupants at BBS that they should bring cooked food in those stalls and use stalls to sell food. But rather those people preferred to cook there. It is important for contract rules and regulations to be obeyed by occupants.
The council should not fold their hands and allow people to use their properties without paying.”
Moselewapula ward councillor Tonic Bonang endorsed Mabego’s call.
“If people can rent out our market stalls to others then it shows a problem on our part. We should tighten our bye-laws or take action on people who do that. This issue is similar to streetlights because our council is failing to manage them well.
This city is always dark and it shows that we are not given correct information at times,” Bonang said.
Although some councillors agreed that the original purpose for availing such facilities was to promote informal sector growth through the provision of affordable operational space to SMMEs, they felt there was need for a review.
Government ward councillor Mohammed Sobhan wants the GCC to repossess all market stalls for re-allocation.