What it will take to make Joburg a world-class city

“Politics is destroying Joburg.”

“I'm ashamed to tell people I live here.”

“This world class city is a dump.”

“There is a sense of helplessness and frustration within my community.”

These are some of the comments made by Joburg residents in response to a request by the Joburg Crisis Alliance (JCA) for assessments of the city’s readiness to host the G20 summit in November.

The call for comment was made ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to the city two weeks ago. In 48 hours the organisation received 334 replies. 

The JCA is an emerging alliance of organisations building a civic movement to stop the decline of the city. It includes the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Outa, the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership, Defend our Democracy and others.

Regular, widespread water and electricity outages have caused anger and frustration among Joburg residents. The state of roads, urban decay, poor law enforcement and service delivery failures have also been highlighted as the city's greatest challenges.

During his visit, Ramaphosa described the city as filthy, with infrastructure vandalised everywhere. He announced a multilevel intervention through a Presidential Johannesburg Working Group aimed at stabilising the city’s governance, finances, and infrastructure. The group will operate over the next two years and co-ordinate efforts between government, business, labour, and civil society to address the city's biggest challenges.

Of key concern to many is Joburg's leadership. The city does not have a municipal manager after Floyd Brink's appointment was declared irregular and unlawful by the high court in December. And mayor Dada Morero has not inspired confidence since his election in August last year after Kabelo Gwamanda’s resignation.

Morero has come under fire, with many calling for his head and residents complaining that the city continues to decay under his leadership.

After Ramaphosa's oversight visit, Morero announced that “we are ready to host the G20 summit. Johannesburg is a gateway to Africa and the rest of the world”.

His words rang hollow for some independent organisations and experts, who say Joburg is far from being a “world class city” and the challenges ahead will take more than a few months to resolve. 

Julius Kleynhans, a local government specialist for community advocacy outfit Outa (Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse), told the Sunday Times professional administration was the solution.

Ensure the appointment of a merit-based, professional city manager and executive team to restore governance and service delivery free from political interference

—  Outa's Julius Kleynhans

“Ensure the appointment of a merit-based, professional city manager and executive team to restore governance and service delivery free from political interference, with challenging targets and transparent performance scorecards made publicly available,” Kleynhans said. 

“The city manager’s office has a budget of R1.916bn for 2024/25. This is enormous, yet we aren’t seeing value for money.” 

Kleynhans called for the fast-tracking of emergency repairs and increased transparency on procurement and contractor performance. 

He believed the city could be transformed before G20, “but not saved yet”. 

“With decisive leadership, strategic investment and robust anti-corruption measures, sections of Joburg can be transformed. But time is limited, and without immediate action Johannesburg risks further decline.” 

Barbara Holtmann of Fixed.Africa, an urban safety and community development consultancy working with municipalities and the South African Cities Network, said the city had degraded to the point where “Joburgers are embarrassed”. 

 “For the most part the city is filthy, covered in litter and illegal dumping and public spaces are used as toilets because there are no clean public facilities. There’s no safety or dignity.” 

Holtmann said city crimes — muggings, violence, theft from workplaces and home robberies — were under-reported by about 50%, with people feeling disillusioned and distrustful of both national and metro police.

“There is an ‘everybody knows’ approach to petty corruption and a generalised belief that police officers, Johannesburg metro officers and city officials are corrupt or corruptible.” 

This belief was compounded when City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said this week that an investigation into corruption had found 15 employees implicated in wrongdoing.

Some were colluding with contractors. They had approved payments of contractors' invoices that “contained equipment sourced from our very own stores. One of the contractors invoiced City Power for a mini-substation that already belonged to the entity, with the approval of a manager”.

City Power lost nearly R5bn in electricity it purchased from Eskom, with the auditor-general casting significant doubt on whether it could continue as a going concern. 

In the 2023/24 report, the auditor-general said the material electricity losses of R4.9bn incurred during the financial year represented 30% of total electricity purchased.

Technical losses of R1.4bn were due to energy losses, while non-technical losses of R3.4bn were due to theft and bypassing meters, damaged meters, faulty voltage and billing errors.

Janine Erasmus of Corruption Watch said an extended and damaging power struggle within city management as coalitions and mayors come and go had been extremely damaging.

“Nothing is unfixable, but it will take genuine dedication and deep political will to put aside personal interests and prioritise residents’ interests.”

Community organiser and mobilisation strategist Julia Fish of JoburgCAN works on local government accountability and believes enforcing fiscal discipline is the way to go. 

“Direct the Treasury to ensure that the city funds core services first — water, sanitation, power, roads, waste and law enforcement... The city must improve its poor financial management. An astonishing amount is spent on the group finance department. It has the third-highest spend, at R6.097bn in 2024/25, which includes R1.2bn for staff, R1.6bn for debt impairment and R2.5bn for interest payments. And still it’s failing to manage revenue collections adequately,” Fish said. 

“The municipality needs to audit and benchmark the costs of services and bargain for better prices. We are told it costs Joburg R1,200 to fix a pothole, while a private company can do a better job for R350. The same applies to procurement practices like buying toilet paper.” 

JCA organiser Yunus Chamda told the Sunday Times: “The city is in crisis. Residents want urgent interventions, better leadership, stricter law enforcement and their lives to improve.”

Human rights activist Mark Heywood said “political will” was the overriding factor. 

“Joburg can be substantially and visibly improved in eight months and built upwards. It has the resources, and if used properly it has the capacity. What is missing is the will,” Heywood said. 

“Community events rebuild community cohesion and pride in the city. People are at the heart of all solutions. In terms of concrete steps, the initial focus should be on restoring dignity and pride. Because at the moment Joburg comes across as a city that is broken.” 

He said water, roads, low-cost housing and upliftment of neglected areas such as Alexandra and Kliptown should be prioritised. 

“It can be done if there is political will.”