By Wayne Duvenage, OUTA CEO

The City of Johannesburg is far from being the world-class city its slogan suggests. Instead, Johannesburg is fast becoming a city of decay, mismanaged by its current executive mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, and his mayoral committee.

It’s a well-known fact that the city was not in great shape when, just over a year ago, the small Al Jama-ah party candidate was elected as its ninth mayor since 2016. However, Gwamanda has been in office for over a year now, and his performance leaves much to be desired in managing the country’s largest and most important economic hub.

Gwamanda has had ample time to gain the confidence of the city’s diverse communities but has failed dismally. He has certainly lost the support of the ratepaying communities. This is a dangerous position in terms of his political future, but it’s one he alone has created.

His blaming journalists for the rising tensions among residents, simply because they recount the stories of a city in decline, signals just how disconnected from reality this mayor really is.

Since his appointment, the city’s leadership has shown little regard for the rising costs and declining service delivery experienced by its residents. The overreach of the city’s five-year General Valuation Roll property valuation increases in July 2023 has yet to resolve the hundreds, if not thousands, of overvalued tariffs charged by the city.

Then, again in July this year, the city’s management implemented a new fixed fee surcharge for prepaid electricity users, substantially increasing the cost of living for many lower-income households. This does not bode well for a city that claims to care about its residents.

Unsafe buildings, fires, explosions

During his tenure, Lilian Ngoyi Street in the inner city “exploded” due to methane build-up from sewage overflows into the city’s stormwater systems. The mayor promised a thorough investigation and that repair work would be completed within 18 months – by December this year. 

Eighteen months is an unacceptable period to repair this important road and given the slow pace of construction activity a year later, even this deadline will most likely not be met.

In another tragic incident in August 2023, a fire broke out in a five-storey building at the corner of Delvers and Albert Streets in the city centre. The illegally occupied building, which was taken over by gangs, housed as many as 400 people. Sadly, 77 people died and another 88 were injured, making it one of the deadliest fires in South Africa’s history.

A detailed report on this disaster has implicated several individuals in dereliction of duty, yet no one has been held accountable. The mayor has failed to play any meaningful role in this matter to date.

In another unsafe building matter, the Civic Centre, which is the heartbeat of the city’s administration, had to be vacated due to a small fire and the discovery of some safety concerns and equipment that needed upgrading. Almost a year later, the required repairs have not been completed.

The workforce, dispersed among other premises, is under strain and not meeting the needs of the residents and businesses who require efficient service delivery from the city’s administration and management. If the mayor is indeed attending to this disaster with the urgency expected of him, the public are certainly unaware of this.

These are just three of many incidents that have given the mayor ample opportunity to demonstrate his leadership capabilities and rebuild the confidence of the people he serves. Yet he has failed, and residents across the city have witnessed the rapid decay of their roads, water, electricity and other infrastructure.

Broke and broken

The fact is that the City of Joburg is broke and broken and requires urgent attention, and the people have no confidence in this mayor and his team to do their job. 

Instead of improving their systems, managing overspending or trimming bloated manpower costs, they continue to squeeze more from their customers and borrow more money, further indebting the city and its residents to higher costs and more rate increases.

Numerous civil society entities are eager to help. The inner city precinct is undergoing significant uplifting and inspiration from an NGO (Jozi-my-Jozi) funded by business and others to make a difference to the city of Joburg. Business and resident communities have started their own neighbourhood clean-up and infrastructure repair initiatives.

Yet, there is no formal acknowledgment from the city’s management, nor is there any attempt to harness the collective power of community associations to work with the city in this regard. Instead, they treat these efforts with disdain, arrogantly threatening communities with legal action if they attempt to conduct their own road and other infrastructure repairs.

With electricity substation vandalism rampant, civil action organisations like Outa have offered to coordinate resident associations to install camera surveillance and armed response units to protect City Power’s substations. Shockingly, City Power officials ignored these offers and the vandalism continues unabated.

Expertise needed

The City of Johannesburg will never reverse its decay unless its leadership seeks community involvement and professionalises its various service delivery roles.

Debt will continue to rise unless the city fixes its systems and appoints the necessary expertise to manage this process.

The recent forced resignation of competent Joburg Roads Agency CEO, Louis Nel – and his replacement with a less qualified individual – is indicative of the closed mindset and arrogant leadership, as is their continued support of Joburg Property Company CEO, Helen Botes, despite heaps of evidence that details her mismanagement and misconduct.

Civil society and residents have many solutions to offer, but they also have demands that the city’s management must heed. If the city is to receive the help it needs from civil society, it must also listen to its communities.

Instead, the city’s management has adopted an arrogant and hardline approach, and taken the easy route of passing on the costs of their maladministration to residents and businesses in their annual budget plans.

Oversight overdue

Higher-level political oversight and interventions are long overdue. 

Unfortunately, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi is unlikely to have an impact due to his own weak leadership, combined with his political position and close proximity to the failed City of Joburg management team.

Therefore, it is up to the new GNU partners, the new CoGTA Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, along with Treasury and the Presidency, to urgently intervene. 

Every day they wait is a day lost to the urgent turnaround desperately needed, bringing the city closer to protests it can ill afford.

My message to the city’s management is simple: Step down, Mr Mayor, and take your cronies with you. 

You have overstayed your welcome and failed to provide the necessary leadership. You have allowed the city to slide into further debt and decay, and deflected your inefficiencies onto the already overburdened taxpayers.

Step down now, Mr Mayor, or face the growing threat of backlash from your residents.