In the area, the stand is acclaimed for its owner’s entrepreneurship. Short, dark and burly Peter Bokosi, popularly known as Boxer, is well-known for his clever money-making schemes.
When The Standard news crew visited the place recently, a woman was busy making a fire in a shade near the entrance, which later turned out to be the place where Bokosi’s imbibing clients sit and enjoy a cold beer after a hard day’s work.
They are also served food for a fee. Near the shade is a small tuckshop which Boxer said was built by one of his tenants under his lease scheme. Behind his main house is a structure bigger than the tuckshop, which turns out to be another house he is letting to tenants.
Behind this second house is the main attraction of this compound — several cardboard structures believed to be home to scores of people, most of them alleged to be prostitutes.
“As you can see, my compound is very big, so I rent space to those willing to establish a home of their own on a lease agreement,” Boxer explained.“There is enough space for you to build a house of any size here and we help each other in meeting the costs. Space for a two-roomed cottage costs US$75 and that for a four-roomed one costs US$150.
“You just build your beautiful house here and those who live in the shacks like noise so you ignore them and mind your own business.” A tenant buys building material, which could cost less than US$300 for a three-roomed structure. Boxer, who claims to be a qualified builder, does all the construction at a minimal cost bearing in mind that he will inherit the structure when the tenant finally leaves.
The two parties would then agree on monthly rentals which will see each side realising maximum benefit from the deal, with the landlord getting value for his land and the tenant getting value from the lease.
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Owner plans to phase out shacks
Boxer said he plans to phase out the squalid shacks in the backyard, where each tenant is understood to be paying US$20 per month to allow for the construction of standard structures.
“Those living in the shacks do not have money so some just plaster the floor and use cardboards for the walls,” he explained. “But I want value for every part of the compound as you can see at the corner there is a garage where people park their cars at a fee and over there someone is selling his furniture.”
A walk around the compound showed that the section with the shacks — about 15 in total — was a clear health hazard; with flies buzzing at a big hole in the open which serves as the Blair toilet.
A central tape and an open well serve the whole compound with water. Every structure is connected to the main power supply. Music could be heard blasting from a radio in one of the shacks; somebody was watching an African movie in another while free-to-air Wiztec satellite dishes were installed on some.
Little children, most of them running in and out of some of the shacks, were playing around while at the front of the main house, some men offloaded crates of beer meant for sale.
Place serves as shebeen, brothel
People from the neighbourhood said the compound, which is a few metres from the main road, is a hive of activity at night, with the front serving as a shebeen and the shacks-section as a brothel.
As if to confirm this, Boxer advised a man working on the floor of one of the shacks to also attend to the wall separating it from the next so that “what happens in there is not heard over here”.
Analysts said Boxer might be capitalising on the plight of home-seekers, especially the poor, by offering squalid shelter at a fee.
Housing shortage, no reason to flout city by-laws: Gwindi
The city’s housing department has said the housing backlog stands at more than 500 000 residents, with about 220 housing cooperatives not yet shortlisted for any residential stands.
City spokesperson Leslie Gwindi said lack of housing should not be used as a reason to flout city by-laws. “Illegal structures like those ones you are talking about are not allowed and the housing backlog does not justify that illegal activity,” he said.
“Whenever such things happen, we destroy the structures and fine the offender.”
