Outcry as JPC moves to privatise Johannesburg parks and sports facilities

Key topics:

• JPC plans to privatise parks and sports facilities in Johannesburg

• DA councillors and residents oppose lack of transparency and consultation

• JPC’s history of mismanagement raises concerns over future asset handling

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By Leah Potgieter*

Johannesburg residents − and DA councillors − are alarmed at the recent move by the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) on well-used and functioning public infrastructure, sports facilities and open spaces in the city, through outright sale, long-term leases or ceding of rights of such properties.

This is not only short-sighted but actively undermines the company’s duty to Jo’burg residents.

These facilities are not commercial assets to be leveraged for profit, but critical social spaces that support youth development, community health and social inclusion. And the JPC’s track record means any such move calls for careful scrutiny.

On 25 June, DA councillors discovered that Item 42 on the City Council’s agenda, identified as a lease renewal and set down for discussion, covered several parks and sports clubs in the city.  The item sought council approval for a number of possible options that included “alienation”.

As it happened, the voting out of the Speaker on that day meant the item was not discussed as scheduled.  Nevertheless, the cat was out of the bag.

 As the scope of what was proposed for Erf RE/33 Braamfontein 53 IR, which covers 172 hectares zoned for public  spaces (areas such as  the Botanical Gardens, Marks Park, Protea Sports Club, Wits Soccer Ground, UJ sports ground, Melville Koppies, and Westdene Dam) began to sink in, petitions were drawn up and began circulating.

The Erf consists of 172 hectares zoned for public open space. The paperwork for the item included references to “purchaser”, “transfer”, “rezoning” and a R50m injection of capital as well as “alienation”. But no other information was supplied.

The news that such a carte-blanche proposal would have been voted on and probably given the go-ahead on 25th June, had the Speaker not been voted out, has drawn some direct response, and some public information, from the JPC.

Redefining

Recent JPC statements about needing to “move with the times” and redefine the meaning of parks and recreation facilities make clear that its intention is to commercialise and privatise these spaces. The Company wants to rewrite the purpose of public sports clubs and leisure locations, not to improve them, but to extract value from them.

While it now claims it is merely reviewing the financial arrangements behind existing leases, this explanation falls apart under scrutiny. If the goal was simply to renegotiate leases, why the repeated public declarations about redefining the role of sports and recreation facilities? Why frame the conversation around the “financial benefit the city gets” from community clubs and public recreation spaces, if not to monetise and commodify them? This is not a lease review, it is a policy shift that prioritises short-term revenue over long-term public value.

JPC has spent decades trying to offload municipal properties through long-term “investment leases” of 20 to 50 years. These projects have almost universally failed. The JPC was central to the City of Johannesburg’s Inner City Property Scheme (ICPS), launched in 2011 to transfer approximately 30 hijacked, abandoned, or underutilised municipal buildings to private developers via long-term leases of up to 50 years, with options to purchase after redevelopment.

Despite this ambitious plan, the scheme failed due to JPC awarding leases to underqualified and sometimes politically connected entities lacking financial and technical capacity. Many buildings remained hijacked, illegally occupied, or re-hijacked because JPC failed to secure properties or arrange legal evictions and transitional housing for occupants.

Audit reports, including those from the Auditor-General and City oversight committees, found that JPC did not monitor compliance, turned a blind eye to illegal subletting, bribery, and leases granted without proper evaluation, and took little action against non-performance. In addition, at least 33 property transfers were later deemed irregular, triggering investigations. By 2015, the ICPS was widely seen as a failure.

Another attempt

In 2018, it attempted yet again to revitalise failed properties through the Inner-City Investment Plan of 2018, which had promise, but was marred by much of the same bad governance behaviour that the JPC had exhibited during the property scheme. I cannot name a property released in 2018 that has been successfully developed to date.

The JPC has not succeeded in getting outdoor advertising under control, nor has it  prevented the invasion and abuse of commercially viable properties. It has failed to maintain what it already has. And yet now, it is targeting well-run, functional, socially beneficial sports facilities: spaces that are already working, for so-called optimisation.

Residents see through this.  This is not asset optimisation. This is a cover for a failure to run a sustainable business. It’s election campaigning wrapped in property spin. And it’s not being done within the law.

The JPC does not act above Council. These decisions are being rushed through Council with very little information on what the purpose is and a glaring lack of compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), the Government Immovable Asset Management Act (GIAMA) or the Asset Transfer Regulations.

No public meetings were called before the Item was listed for discussion and none have, as yet, been called or held. No proper information packs have been provided, which would have included proposals, clear economic value and up-to-date valuations. (Instead JPC will provide this information AFTER it has alienated these facilities). Which sound financial organisation operates like this?

Cherry

To put the cherry on top of the cake, the Council has yet to see an actual asset management plan, despite the Asset Transfer Regulations requiring that JPC annually include all proposed disposals and a full asset strategy in the City’s annual budget.

How can residents and their Councillor representatives be expected to make informed, comprehensive decisions, and participate meaningfully when they have no idea what is happening behind closed doors?  That is not transparency. That is exclusion. This entire process lacks the openness, accountability and participatory planning that the law demands and that residents deserve.

JPC’s leadership is in crisis. The alleged CEO, Helen Botes,  was somehow seconded as Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the City after her contract expired in September 2024. She was found guilty by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) of financial mismanagement over PPE procurement fraud, an investigation launched by the DA in Jo’burg. She is also currently under investigation by the Hawks for the alleged fraudulent payment of funds to certain political parties, via a newly established company which was not the lessor of Proton House (a building vacated by the City a year prior). These funds were allegedly used to unseat the DA in Johannesburg in 2023.

It was also under her watch that the Metro Centre was allowed to be vandalised and stripped in a shady private-lease scheme, based on a claim that the building was structurally unsound: a claim that was not supported by actual engineers in 2024, and one which is costing the City millions.

This is the same JPC that now wants residents to trust it with the future of public sports infrastructure.

Alienating sports facilities in this manner is not about investment or progress. It is about short-term political and financial expediency.

Punishment

It punishes the very residents who have maintained and managed these spaces, often at their own cost, for years, in good faith and in partnership with the City. It removes access, increases costs, and shifts control. The JPC is the one which has repeatedly failed to timeously renew leases and renegotiate reasonable financial terms between parties. It now wants to perform some sort of blanket approach to sporting facilities which are by its own admission, social leases that are not commercial or economic in nature, and are needed to balance out the mandate of the City to its residents.

These facilities build safer, healthier, and more cohesive communities. Many support disadvantaged communities at their own cost. If the JPC is serious about optimisation, it should look inward, to the properties it has failed to develop, the buildings it has failed to protect and the leases it has failed to enforce. It should sit down with organisations running these sports facilities as well as with Councillors, and properly explain its plan.

*Leah Potgieter is a DA Member of Parliament.

This article was originally published by Daily Friend and has been republished with permission.