How to avoid an express kidnapping

(This article first appeared as a Johannesburg newsletter. Subscribe here.)

Express kidnappings grow – here’s what to know

Vincent Cruywagen and Bheki C Simelane explains that the killing of international relations expert Steven Gruzd highlights the 264% increase in kidnappings over a decade, despite the launch of specialised police units.

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Express kidnappings skyrocket: Steven Gruzd murder raises alarm over increase in abductions

April 19, 2026

Civil society wants answers on the Metro Centre

We have reported that the Metro Centre, what should be our civic home, has been shuttered and abandoned for three years now with no sign of a refurbishment. All while cadre property owners cash in – Ka-ching!

All this while the City’s plans are abandoned in the building and people who want to sell, renovate or develop their properties are stuck as an interim plan by the City has repeatedly stalled and failed. Anna Cox has the story on a civil society campaign to get the plans removed and archived safely.

Architect Heather Dodd explains why the Metro Centre closure is a big problem

The City of Johannesburg Plans Archive is the repository of the files containing all the building plans and application material for all properties in the City of Johannesburg. These files contain a record of all information related to a property – these include drawings but also town planning and other approvals. There are hundreds of thousands of files in the archive.

The entire archive located on the 6th floor and basement of the Metro Centre has been left in a building that is unsecured and unsafe. There is no regular oversight of the archive, no electricity supply, lighting or adequate fire protection. Should a fire occur or the basement area flood – which is not unlikely – this archive would be destroyed.

The archive contains the entire historic and legal record of the built environment in the City of Johannesburg. Without access to the information in these files, we would have no knowledge of the original architect of the building, the date of the original application – the history and heritage of a property, locations of services or any access to original drawings and records of approvals.

When buildings are altered, a record of the alterations is required to inform the design and construction process. Without access to previous town planning applications and approvals contained in the files, there is no record of these approvals.

In addition, these documents contain a vast trove of unwritten history – both social and economic – relating to the built environment.

Property owners are required by financial institutions to produce “approved plans” on transfer of a property. If they have no access to these, property owners are being asked to reproduce and submit new applications for approval. Depending on the scale of the building, this is extremely costly in terms of professional fees, application fees and the time it takes for approval, holding up the property transfer.

Reproducing a set of “as-built” drawings of a building is a time-consuming process and does not account for the wealth of information contained in the historic records of applications. A large proportion of buildings in the city are over 60 years old and therefore subject to the National Heritage Resources Act. Without access to the information in the property files, heritage professionals have no way of building a heritage application in terms of the requirements of this legislation.

Should this asset be lost to the City of Johannesburg, the loss of information would be immeasurable, disrupting the processes of property development in the city, making built environment professionals’ – architects, town planners, conveyancers and heritage practitioners – jobs much harder if not impossible to do and making these services to the public much more expensive.

G20’s gone – so are the traffic lights

Tell me, are traffic light outages becoming a big problem again after a brief and welcome improvement ahead and during the G20 in November last year? I was driving on Winnie Mandela the other day and all the intersections that the Gauteng government promised would never be on the blink again were deader than a dodo. Let me know about chronic traffic light failures and street light outages where you are on ferial@dailymaverick.co.za (We compile the data and use it to alert authorities and investigate but can’t help with individual outages as much as we wish we had the power to do so.)

Joburg ‘Person of the day’

Author Barbara Adair turns travel writing on its head in her latest book 6h00 somewhere and many hours later somewhere else. Published by Modjadji Books, this genre-bending work, illustrated by the strikingly original artist Mark Kannemeyer, is not a guide to a place, but an immersion into the feeling of a journey. Ditching the linear narrative of a traditional travelogue, 6h00 somewhere is a captivating, dreamlike exploration. Is it a memoir of a single trip to Namibia, a collage of several, or a work of pure imagination? Adair leaves this beautifully ambiguous, allowing the reader to become a co-pilot on a route charted by emotion and evocation rather than a map.

Picture of the day

Go-to spot

HYDE | 24 Cradock Ave, right in the heart of Rosebank

…At HYDE, it’s all in the details, from the local art throughout the space to the in-room touches, right down to the body wash and amenities. The perfect staycation in the city - Aneesa A.

(This article first appeared as a Johannesburg newsletter. Subscribe here.)