Within hours of contractors bricking up problem buildings in Central last week, vagrants knocked out the bricks and cement and reclaimed the derelict structures from which they had been evicted.
The entrances to several problematic buildings in Central, harbouring vagrants and criminals, have been bricked up pending approval to have some of them demolished.
The auditor-general has flagged the irregular appointment by the Mandela Bay Development Agency of the Central Special Rating Area (SRA) and another company through a deviation.
Despite the fears of many Gqeberha residents, it appears all is not lost in the city’s historic Central district. In this column a few weeks ago I reported how the old Newspaper House on Baakens Street is being used as a leading training academy for the manufacturing sector.