ALI MPHAKI
A POLICE officer and former development coach at Orlando Pirates is operating an illegal shebeen in a house he is renting in Power Park – and the “owners” want him out so that they can convert it into an orphanage.
The house was a sanctuary for Orlando West councillor Violet Phetjaulema and black local authority councillors. They sheltered there from marauding comrades in the township who wanted to kill them because they were seen as puppets with links to the apartheid regime during the turbulent 1980s.
Phetjaulema died some time ago, and the house was inherited by her family.
Warrant Officer George Nontlantsane, from the Meadowlands police station, has been renting 46 Switch Street since 1994. He told The Star that he and his unemployed wife decided to operate a shebeen to try to make ends meet.
Apart from renting out several rooms of the house to university students, he also runs a spaza shop.
Now Nontlantsane is being accused by Phetjaulema’s children of running down the property and refusing to vacate it.
Phetjaulema’s daughter Matshepo said her family wanted to convert the spacious house into an orphanage, and several attempts to have Nontlantsane leave the property had failed.
But the policeman believes the property belongs to Joburg and not the Phetjaulemas, yet he says he pays R1 000 a month in rent to the Phetjaulema family.
Joburg mayoral spokeswoman Bubu Xuba confirmed that several houses which were used to accommodate erstwhile Soweto councillors in Power Park were still council property.
He called the housing issue at Power Park “a complex one”.