Landlords losing business
CRIME-INFESTED MAHWALALA
MBABANE – A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.
Unfortunately, this adage does not hold true for lessors, whose property is situated at Mahwalala, a crime infested neighbourhood rejected by many potential tenants.
Mahwalala is situated at least si[ kilometres away from the capital city, Mbabane, and it is home to Mbabane :est Member of Parliament (MP) Musa Zwane.
:ith its accessibility and close proximity to town, it is dominated by properties to let, targeting the working class, but it is also a pre ferred residence by students from the Eswatini Medical Christian 8niversity (EMCU), which is situ ated closer to the area. The place is known to offer smaller unit houses or flats, which are quite affordable to both students and low income earness.
Accommodation
However, a good network of roads, affordable accommodation and active cluster of different businesses is not enough to attract tenants with issues of security being the main challenge.
This was attested to by Bucopho of the area, Bhekithemba Dlamini, who shared that the issue of crime had been a thorn in their flesh, particularly at Mahwalala =one
, where most of the incidents of crime occurred.
He shared that as Mahwalala had many houses to let, including single rooms, which were mostly preferred by the students enrolled at the uni versity, the people who were mostly involved in the crimes were actually tenants, not permanent residents of the area.
He highlighted that the high youth unemployment rate was the main contributor to the high crime rate in the area. “The observation is that in most cases, these are not people from the area but from other areas, who come to the neighbourhood, rent flat and engage in crime.
They use the same money benefit ted from crime to pay the rent,´ he said during an interview. Dlamini asserted that one of their attempts to curb the crime was to encourage landlords to register each tenant, know basic information about them, including their place of origin, how many of them would be occupying the room or house and how they made an income.
Intentions
He also shared that it was not all the zones that were experiencing a high volume of crime as they had launched a neighbourhood watch and as such, some zones were simply a no go area as far as intentions to engage in crime were concerned.
“The unfortunate part is that the residents sometimes do mob justice and beat up perpetrators, which we do not encourage as police are there to take over from the community members who have busted the thugs in their act of crime. However, the neighbourhood watch is not as strong in some zones, so much that the crime remains high,´ he said.
Not so long ago, Zweli Ginindza of Mahwalala appeared at the Mba bane Magistrates Court charged with seven counts of theft, which he pleaded guilty to. He was charged with housebreaking and stealing items such as clothing and electronic gadgets, which belonged to students from the university resid ing in different settings along the Mahwalala Nkwalini corridor. In the month of March, it was reported that two suspects were arrested for a string of housebreaking and theft offences in eight homesteads around Mahwalala and Nkwalini areas and property and valuables valued at E91334 were stolen.
In a previous interview with a community police member at Mah walala, Zazi Dlamini, he shared that he was staying at Mahwalala at Zone and the crime was not as high as at Zone , all thanks to a neighbourhood watch that they were pushing as a community. He shared that Zone was prone to incidents of crime because a great percentage of the youth in the area were unemployed and resorting to crime to make ends meet.
Issues
“Issues of pick pocketing and housebreaking are the frequent crimes that occur at Mahwalala, but after launching the neighbourhood watch at =one they have become a thing of the past. However, in the other zones, they are still bothered by same, mostly because they are dominated by the youth who are unemployed,´ he said.
Dlamini said they worked hand in hand with the police, whom they called once there were suspicions of crime or when they had caught thieves in their act. A landlord at Mahwalala, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that indeed they were losing business due to the issues of crime in the area. He shared that Mahwalala was a preferred area for business of this nature because of its accessibility, cluster of businesses and close proximity to town and flowing public transport.
“However, half the time, the houses are empty and attracting tenants be comes a hustle due to the cancer of crime. This is so unfortunate because some of us are still paying mortgages and if the houses remain unoccupied, we would be dealt a huge blow,´ he asserted.
The reluctance by potential tenants to reside at Mahwalala is also evident on )acebook groups, which help in identifying vacant houses to let. The potential tenants in the groups don’t make it a secret that they won’t reside at Mahwalala because it is infested with crime. One of the students at the university, residing at Mahwalala, shared that she once lost her clothes, which she had left on the drying line while rushing to school, only to find the line empty a few hours later.
Items
“These were items of high quality including sneakers, a laptop bag and clothes. , I did not even report it to the police because the police usually don’t make it here when people report crimes," she shared.
According to information sourced from Global Organised Crime index, most criminal activity in Eswatini is perpetrated by small gangs and syndicates engaged in various activities from armed robbery to hijacking and smuggling.
Syndicates are particularly involved in vehicle, drug and human smuggling and trafficking through the country and, therefore, tend to have links with criminal organisa tions in neighbouring South Africa and Mozambique. Violent crime disproportionately affects the poor, and is most often perpetrated by persons operating in these criminal groups.
The main organised criminal activities are facilitated by the corruption of political elites, law enforcement and regulatory authorities. High level of corruption is funded by revenue from the illicit trade of counterfeit goods, precious minerals, stolen motor vehicles, clothing and textiles, pharmaceuticals and livestock.