To: Limpopo Body Corporate Trustees, City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg City Parks
Date: 2021-10-01
Submitted by: Residents of the Limpopo Complex, 70 Gibson Street, Sophiatown

MEMORANDUM OF GRIEVANCES

This serves as a formal notice for a peaceful demonstration to take place Friday, 2021/10/01 by the residents of Limpopo Complex, located at 70 Gibson Street. We further submit that we understand this to be it is our democratic right as established in Section 17 if the Constitution of South Africa. Our reasons for the demonstration are as below.
1. We as the residents of Limpopo complex do not believe that the trustees of the Limpopo Body Corporate are not acting in the best interests of the residents themselves but are instead benefiting their own pockets.
2. Our freedoms of speech and expression are being violated as we are unable to convene meetings with the trustees to air our grievances. The only platform that is afforded to us is a WhatsApp group that we are not able to freely project our views as the administrator, who is a trustee, limits communication to himself.
3. We do not know the exact amount we are owing to the City of Johannesburg as there is no clear tax invoice for the services it provides for us, as currently the amounts that we apparently owe are masked by what we believe to be fraudulent levies charged to us by the Body Corporate.
4. We further require clarity by means of formal written communication or an authorized organ of the City of Johannesburg, as to why we are not afforded the opportunity for Debt Relief as offered to other residents of the City of Johannesburg, even though we meet the same criterion, as we live-in low-cost housing with a market value less than R 350 000.
5. Majority of the residents of the complex are either low earning, earn minimum to no wage, suffered salary reductions due to the impact of Covid 19 restrictions or are pensioners.
6. Residents are simply unable to afford the service costs associated with the installation of prepaid meters from a third-party company.
7. We are not in contention to paying services to the City of Johannesburg, and we need prepaid meters, from the City of Johannesburg that is. We are however in contention to the third-party service provider imposed on us by the trustees, that being Impact Meter Services, a company with a trust index of 1.5 out of 10 on hellopeter(https://www.hellopeter.com/impact-meter-services), coupled with hundreds of negative reviews on the site as well as complaints db.com(https://complaintsdb.com/business/impact-meters-48275).
8. Further to this, the flats in question were free and under the administration of the housing department from 1963 to 1993, from then which it was moved to private ownership, without making this a racial issue, when black people began to occupy and own these flats. We demand a clear paper trail as to how and why these properties were made private and why they were then managed by Body Corporates.
9. We demand that these properties revert to the previous administration so that we may also benefit from the services afforded to Sophiatown residents. For example, Hurricane, a company providing residents of Sophiatown at large affordable fiber internet connection is unable to do because they are barred by the Body Corporate with no clear explanation.
10. The complex has become a drug haven because there is no security afforded to us as residents. Everyone has access to our buildings, and we are not allowed to erect enclosures to protect ourselves and our children in that regard. Instead, we are charged exorbitant levies with no form of development. We demand that City Parks also give us a clear timeline as to when we can expect this enclosure to be erected. The company Sectional Titles Portfolio Management (SPM), boldly states on their website that their “main objective is to meet property owner’s requirements in providing stable and secure environment and provide professional property management service”, however they have dismally failed us in this regard, as we do not have a secure environment to call our own.

11. We are told that the area, that being the Limpopo Complex, is a heritage site, however there is no work being done to protect it or maintain its standards, instead the buildings are falling apart and are not visually appealing from the outside. The potential to attract tourists to this place is hindered by these facts and that drugs are freely sold and used here with no consequence at all from law enforcement and the Body Corporate’s trustee’s who claim to have been acting in the best interests of the owners. The drug issue needs to be attended immediately, as we cannot tolerate this anymore.

12. We are also aware of meetings that are held with specific owners that are part of this cause, which we have on good record, and promises for their levies debts to be cleared when and if they abandon these issues. This is a clear indication that there are unscrupulous acti