Geoff Makhubo: mayor who wanted the best for his metro

The mayor of Johannesburg, Geoff Makhubo, who died on Friday aged 53, was a committed ANC member and a passionate Orlando Pirates fan.

“In our home, only two things mattered; Orlando Pirates and the ANC,” a family member said. Makhubo, who was admitted to hospital last week with Covid, leaves behind his mother, his wife and two daughters. Geoffrey Moloantoa Makhubo cut his political teeth as a teenager when he joined the Congress of South African Students (Cosas). He studied for a BCom degree at Wits University.

Before graduating in 1990 he joined the Black Students Association and the then Azanian Student Organisation, which changed its name to the South African Students Congress (Sasco).While a young man, he crossed Johannesburg from Orange Farm in the south to Ivory Park in the northeast to help rebuild the ANC Youth League.

This work and campaigning steered him in the direction of managing a big city and he became a councillor. Those close to him said he was a “gifted technocrat”. He served as the councillor for finance in a previous ANC administration of Johannesburg.

He was always ready to ensure that plans were developed into successful projects. At university, he earned two master’s degrees in just two years. Makhubo lived comfortably with what some people might have seen as contradictions. He saw theory and practice as a false divide.

His communication staff tried unsuccessfully to get him to make political capital of holding two master’s degrees, which made him one of the most academically qualified mayors of any major metro in the country.

A colleague said of Makhubo that he considered success to be “improving the lived reality of the average Johannesburg resident” and not how he might be perceived in the media.

He became frustrated when the city or its entities were in the media for what he perceived to be the wrong reasons. He would read the riot act to procurement officials who, as far as he was concerned, had a cavalier attitude and allowed contracts to continue because the city had been slow in putting out for tender contracts that needed renewal.

He accepted that some members of the ANC had their preferred candidates for leadership, or for ideas, but said he never took this personally.

He understood that politics was a battle for power and knew that not all his fellow ANC members would always agree with him. He said that the problem was often not that the members did not agree, it was factionalism. He believed in a professionalised public service. Makhubo drew on the knowledge of anyone who could be helpful, among them academics, political analysts, professionals and former colleagues who, he believed, could offer insight to help the city.

He became frustrated when the city or its entities were in the media for what he perceived to be the wrong reasons

“I do not care what colour T-shirt you wear over the weekend. What I am interested in is that you deliver what is expected of you,” he said. He assured city officials there would be no purges because of political affiliations.

He had a deep understanding of how the city of Johannesburg operated and how it was run from city hall. He could give detailed analyses of each of its 135 wards.

Makhubo was easy-going and often engaged in banter with staff, regardless of their standing or rank in the city hierarchy. This was especially so with the city council’s younger staff. Such an attitude often disguised the fact that he could be a hard taskmaster.

Late last year after a city lekgotla, he summoned all the managers of the city entities and departments who had failed to attend. They needed to explain their absence, acknowledge shortcomings in their areas of responsibility and tell him how these would addressed. It was not unusual for officials to receive text messages from him when they awoke that had been sent at three o’clock that morning, most recently from his deathbed.

While his appearance at the Zondo commission would have been stressful for him and his comrades, he remained confident he would be vindicated when the commission report is released.

1968 - 2021