Johannesburg High Court orders ANC to pay R880,000 cleaning debt at Luthuli House

The ANC owes R880,000 to a private cleaning company, and a default judgment granted by the Johannesburg High Court means the party’s assets can now be attached to settle it.

The debt is owed to Bidvst Services for cleaning, hygiene and pest control work carried out at Luthuli House, the party’s headquarters in downtown Johannesburg. A default judgment is granted when a defendant does not enter an appearance to defend, and it carries the same force as a judgment won at trial. BusinessTech reported the order on Thursday.

What a default judgment allows

Once a judgment is on the record, the creditor can apply for a writ of execution. That is the instrument a sheriff uses to attach movable property, and where that does not cover the amount, a creditor can ask the court to attach and sell immovable property.

The figure is small by the standards of a national political party’s balance sheet, which is exactly why it matters. A default judgment is a procedural admission that nobody filed papers to dispute the claim. The party can still apply to rescind the order, and an application of that kind is decided on whether the default was wilful and whether there is a defence worth hearing.

Luthuli House has been the ANC’s headquarters since 1997 and is one of the party’s few substantial fixed assets. A sheriff’s attachment at the building would be a visible event, not a quiet ledger entry.

The Pretoria relocation

The same week, a separate dispute is running in Pretoria over where the people living at the Melgisedek Centre should go.

The Tshwane Metro Council has approved a plan to move them to a temporary tent town in Capital Park. Residents of Gezina and Capital Park have objected, saying the settlement will push crime up in their suburbs. The Freedom Front Plus has taken up their case and is supporting the community’s objections.

Both suburbs sit north of the Pretoria CBD, along the corridor that carries the city’s older residential fabric. Capital Park is a mix of freehold homes, small businesses and light industrial plots. The objections raised there are the same ones raised in every South African city that has attempted a managed relocation, being property values, safety and the absence of a plan for what happens after the tents.

That last point is the substance of the dispute. A temporary tent town is a holding measure. It becomes permanent when no second site, no budget line and no timeline for brick-and-mortar housing is attached to it. Tshwane has not published a dated plan for the Melgisedek residents beyond the temporary site.

What it means for the people in the middle

The Melgisedek residents are the least powerful party in this fight. They did not choose the site, they are not represented in the council vote that approved it, and they have no legal standing to insist on a better one. Their interest is a roof, water, sanitation and a school within walking distance for their children.

The Gezina and Capital Park residents have a legitimate interest too. Nobody who has watched an informal settlement grow without services can pretend the concerns are invented. The failure in this file is not the residents on either side. It is that the city is moving people to tents before it has a housing pipeline to move them out of them.

The courts have said repeatedly that a municipality may not evict or relocate people without a lawful process and a meaningful plan for where they go. That principle, set out in the Constitutional Court’s decisions on housing, is what a relocation of this kind has to satisfy.

The broader picture

Both stories are about institutions being held to the same rules as everyone else. The ANC is a debtor like any other and the High Court treated it that way. Tshwane is a municipality with a constitutional duty on housing and a ratepayer base that expects the plan to be published.

On the Luthuli House matter, the next step is dated. The ANC has ten days from service of the judgment to note an application to rescind, and Bidvst can move on execution in the meantime. On Capital Park, the next step is a council report on the relocation budget and the site’s service connections, which Tshwane’s human settlements department has not yet tabled.

Source: BusinessTech, ANC forced to pay private company R880,000, and battle over city-approved squatter camp in Pretoria