Joburg’s development planning offices hit by burglaries, MMC smells foul play

The City of Johannesburg’s development planning offices have been rocked by burglaries and vandalism of property, with the latest crimes taking place days apart.

Member of the mayoral committee (MMC) for development planning, councillor Belinda Echeozonjoku, has expressed deep shock and disappointment about the burglaries. 

She said building development management staff on Tuesday discovered their office, on the sixth floor of the Metro Centre in Braamfontein, had been burgled and 20 desktop computers vandalised.

A burglary also took place at the Metro Link building on January 14, during which six desktop computers were damaged.

“Both incidents followed the same modus operandi — a burglary resulting in the theft of hard drives, processing units and memory chips,” she said.

Police are investigating the incidents.

“These are not the first burglaries at development planning offices. In October 2020, 12 desktop computers were broken and their hard drives stolen during a break-in at the single law enforcement office on the fifth floor of the Metro Centre.

“A case of theft and malicious damage to property was opened with the Hillbrow police. A suspect, previously arrested for the same crime, was arrested,” said Echeozonjoku.

She suspects possible sabotage as a motive, saying: “These burglaries and acts of vandalism are a clear indication there is a push back from individuals who are against the digitisation of the building plan application process recently introduced by development planning.”  

“This kind of rogue and unlawful behaviour has rendered our officials without tools of trade, preventing them from effectively performing their duties.

“Management is working hand-in-hand with law enforcement authorities to bring the perpetrators to book.

“We want to send a strong message that all these acts of sabotage are only making us resolute to implement processes and controls that will stop graft in development planning,” she said.

The construction permit management system implemented by development planning is a web-based building permit system intended to modernise and streamline the site development and building plan approval processes, she said.

“Through its implementation, development panning will enhance the operational efficiency and good governance of the department.”

Echeozonjoku said contingency plans were being made with group ICT to replace the equipment with laptops or desktop computers in the interim, to avoid further delays in the examination of building plan applications on the system.

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