The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has ordered the Department of Public Works & Infrastructure (DPWI) to pay millions in outstanding rent to property management company Bothongo Group after months of non-payment.

News24 reports that the department owed Bothongo Group, which owns numerous government buildings in Pretoria, about R58m in rent since February, according to court papers.

The company, which took the department to court on an urgent basis, previously resorted to locking its buildings' doors last year.

In a draft order issued on Wednesday, the High Court also interdicted the department from implementing a decision to stop month-to-month leases of government buildings until it could negotiate long-term leases with the disgruntled property company and no longer have month-to-month leases in place, or until the existing month-to-month leases had been cancelled.

Bothongo owns buildings that house numerous government departments, including Higher Education, Police, National Treasury, Water Affairs, Justice and the navy headquarters.

In November, Public Works Minister Patricia de Lille issued a directive that the department would stop paying month-to-month leases as of December 2021 in an effort to curb irregular expenditure and high costs.

The founding affidavit to the court by Bothongo's group head of property, Tembela Vantyi, stated that with the decision to stop these month-to-month leases, it had not been paid since February.

The department's acting DG, Mokoditloa Moemi, argued in his answering affidavit that the case was not urgent.

He said the company ‘resorted to a tactic of spoliation/self-help/terrorising/breaching of peace’ in threatening to lock doors of the buildings, which were ‘all in peaceful and undisturbed possession for years until Bothongo locked the doors’.

Full News24 report