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Gauteng’s tertiary institutions to be handed unused state-owned buildings

Over the past month South African universities were disrupted by student protests over issues surrounding  historical debt and accommodation.

To address the issue of student accommodation in particular, earlier this week Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, released a statement noting that the government would start handing over unused or underused state-owned buildings to universities in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Sedibeng.

According to Engineering News, this is part of the province’s Rapid Land Release Programme, where land was previously handed over to Unisa to build a new state of the art learning centre in Johannesburg’s central business district.

“As the custodian of the provincial government’s R31 billion Immovable Asset Register, the provincial Department of Infrastructure Development embarked on a process to identify available underused government property that would be made available to institutions of higher learning,” said Makhura.

Engineering News added that the government has identified underused government buildings and will renovate them in partnership with universities and the private sector, and lease them to higher education institutions for student accommodation.

Some buildings that are identified to be released to higher learning institutions include, the Old Pathology building, the TMI building and the Transwerke building in Johannesburg. While in Pretoria the Karel Schoeman building and the De Villiershof building will also be handed over to tertiary institutions.

“In 2017 the Gauteng provincial government signed a memorandum of understanding with all Gauteng based universities regarding collaboration on socioeconomic development initiatives in areas such as advanced skills development, innovation, research and development, student accommodation, safety public transport services and infrastructure development,” concluded Makhura.

[Source – Engineering News]
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]

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