Besides total lack of municipal services the local authorities have not re-assessed the rates vis-à-vis erfs with improvements and empty plots and the fact that many municipal [basic] services are not rendered. Furthermore, the municipality is suing random landowners for arrear rates. Many landowners were chased away from the area, through crime and the lack of municipal services preventing them from running profitable businesses and/or renting the factories to other potential employment-creators in the area. Not only has operating a business from the area been rendered harrowing, but selling the land has become virtually impossible, at least for any commercially viable value. With arrear rates - land cannot be sold. The municipality's solution? Land for the rates.

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(In this regard the reader is referred to the 2001 Setplan. A government requested area analysis of Marlboro South whereby various choices were afforded to the City Council with regards the erven in Marlboro. One of the choices was for the land owners to "donate" their land in exchange for their arrear rates; another was to take possession of privately owned land by suing the owners for arrear rates).

SANCO has allegedly been collecting rent from illegal occupiers of the properties; these allegations have been made by the illegal occupiers themselves! Illegal occupiers who, live in squalid, unhygienic solutions. Factories are not residentially viable dwellings. A factory's sanitation implant is not equipped to cope with 60-70 people's ablutions. The municipality's solution? They are adding two schools to the industrial area.

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The Council's attitude (by obdurately) suing the land owners on an ad hoc , random basis, without attempting to approach the owners on a direct level and not taking responsibility for the utter neglect is disgraceful and loathsome behaviour. Bullying the landowners out of their properties is demonstrative of a serious malfunction of governance.

The city council is neglecting its constitutional duties to "respect those who have worked to build and develop our country", "lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law"; and "improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person". (Act 108 of 1996)

The Marlboro South Land Owners are manufacturers, builders and productionists. They are EMPLOYERS. They are the resource that will contribute to a better Johannesburg . The City Council is thwarting any such evolution...