The greatest hits of 2023: Scrolla.Africa is looking back at some of the best and most important stories of the year.
Save Our City: Everson Luhanga visits a former police station that has been hijacked by criminals.
This police station once served Yeoville in Joburg. Now it looks more like a shebeen.
Some of the new residents are sitting around in the sun, drinking the day away. There are beer bottles scattered everywhere.
The old building has been taken over by occupants who have occupied every room. Some say they squat there for free, others say they pay rent to criminals who have taken over the place.
The charge office has become a living space for a couple.
What used to be holding cells are now furnished with beds, bedside tables, mirrors, and even a double plate stove – but make no mistake, the conditions are not good.
Some rooms have upwards of five people living in them.
Outside in the yard, 17 rooms that were used as offices have been turned into homes. A single toilet that was used by the station’s police officers is now being used by the occupants of the rooms, mostly families from different parts of the country.
The cops abandoned the police station some years ago to move to a new station just minutes away. The new cop shop is fully functioning. Officers who work there know that the old police station has been hijacked and occupied illegally.
No one questions why the authorities have let people occupy this government building.
The Scrolla.Africa team visited the police station and spoke to many of the residents.
Toto Chwayita said she was the first person who occupied one of the outside offices in 2017.
“I came to Gauteng from the Eastern Cape. I had nowhere to stay and I knew no one. There was no one in the old police station and you needed a safe place to stay. So I occupied one of the outside rooms,” she said.
“Over the years, the community grew and all rooms both inside and outside the station became fully occupied. We live in peace and we are happy.”
She said several people have tried to evict them but they resisted as the police station is the only place they call home.
She claimed one of the people who brought papers suggesting that the police station belonged to him was a Congolese man.
“He had signed documents with the City of Joburg logos, claiming that it was his place and he wanted us to move out. We fought back and didn’t bow to his eviction orders. He stopped coming and we never heard from him again.”
Mduduzi Msibi, who occupies one of the holding cells, said he has been living in the yard for almost five years now. He said most of the occupants are unemployed and can’t afford to pay rent.
“We have electricity and water and we have them all free,” he said.
“We don’t work because there are no jobs. We are suffering. That’s why we are here.”
The hijacked police station is just part of a bigger question.
If the government can’t save their own buildings, how will they reclaim hijacked buildings in the city?
Pictured above: The old Yeoville police station which has been hijacked and illegally occupied.
Image credit: Dylan Mohlala
