Johannesburg is home to many talented, hardworking, intellectually gifted South Africans. Compared with other cities, Joburg, by far, attracts the best brains that keep it the commercial capital of Southern Africa.
Yet, with each passing year, the once-illustrious City of Gold seems to lose more of its shine. In fact, of late, it has become something of a joke. A caricature in the pits. This week, the nation woke up to news that Kenny Kunene, that infamous sushi-loving guy, is the new member of the mayoral committee (MMC) responsible for transport. Well, to be honest, it’s hard to figure out if Kunene loved sushi or simply loved eating it off half-naked bodies.
But the joke is that all the smart people of Joburg, from Bryanston to the south, know how crucial the transport portfolio is to the country's economy. This network is responsible for dispatching goods manufactured here or for receiving much of what comes through our ports. Transport is at the heart of our ability to grow our economy. And our best foot forward is Kunene, a legendary chance-taker who served five years for running, wait for it, a Ponzi scheme.
Kunene is not an issue — he is an embodiment of how what once was a place clamouring to become a world-class African city has become a moribund shell, teetering on the brink of financial collapse, hoping for a R2bn loan and now infested with buffoonery in its leadership.
In 2015, then mayor Parks Tau announced in his state of the city address that Johannesburg spent R10bn each year on capex, while the overall budget stood at more than R60bn.
Joburg is home to Wits Business School, which prides itself on sculpting global leaders. It is home, too, to the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs), the University of Johannesburg and many others. Yet it’s not the bright sparks from here who will be in charge of our transport systems. We are gifted one Ponzi schemer who became so poor at it that he got himself arrested. Trust me with public funds, he tells us this week. What, truly, can he say: don’t trust me? He will now be responsible for a portfolio that includes the Johannesburg Roads Agency, whose budget for fixing potholes and general road construction was announced at R1.1bn last June. Forget that the JRA boss with a fake doctorate is on suspension.
Kunene is not an issue — he is an embodiment of how what once was a place clamouring to become a world-class African city has become a moribund shell, teetering on the brink of financial collapse.
Your stomach must turn when you watch a clip of the new mayor Al Jama-ah’s Thapelo Amad reminiscing about growing up in Soweto where “you would even take a bath" (you go boy!) and “wear your festive clothes we used to call them Christmas clothes”. He says “Johannesburg was the capital city of the city itself, the CBD”. I am not making this stuff up, I swear. We must never ridicule anyone for getting English wrong. And London is far, anyway. But what on Earth is the new mayor’s vision? You’ve got to laugh at this nonsense or it will give you a heart attack. But the simple question is: what the hell went wrong with what once was a city of gold, a place of opportunity, a hustler’s corner for our continent? Why is it that being Joburg mayor has become something of a joke?
As Mpho Phalatse was voted out, councillors were singin: “uMakoti ngowethu, siyavumaaa (the bride is ours) ...” in reference to her recent marriage. It was, for that moment, hilarious. But in the end it was just a sad reflection on a set of councillors failing to run a city that not too long ago raised surpluses it spent on infrastructure. And when you think the new mayor may instil hope, he tells us Joburg is the “capital city of the city itself, the CBD”! This is when we should really cry for our beloved city, where anyone who used to wear Christmas clothes could be a mayor even if their electoral support was 2%.
So Phalatse had to go because she had clearly become inconvenient for the grade 12 in charge of the DA. The Patriotic Alliance from which Kunene hails could only be allowed one MMC position, ostensibly because the PA is a party of crooks. The obvious point is that if they could not be trusted, the negotiations with them should not have started in the first place, let alone end up agreeing to gift them one MMC position. The DA reasoning was irrational because it was simply a stratagem to eject Phalatse from the mayoral office and eventually out of the DA for daring to challenge John Steenhuisen.
Where Steenhuisen is right is that Kunene can’t be trusted. I don’t. But perhaps the Ponzi scheme was many years ago and we should forgive, right? Well, just over two years ago, Kunene was flung off a spinning Gusheshe, becoming a laughing stock for youngsters who wondered why he didn’t act his age. His friend and PA leader Gayton Mackenzie said of the event: “Kenny forgot momentarily that he is no longer young and can’t do stunts that young people are doing.” And we now want the guy who couldn’t get his act right as a passenger in a spinning car to be responsible for a couple billions of rand fixing Joburg’s legendary potholes?
As a colleague said, we are a trusting people. We trusted Jacob Zuma with the country’s presidency despite clear warnings about him. He became the quintessential wrecker of our dreams. We are only now starting to prosecute some of his lieutenants involved in state capture. Better late than never. But we don’t learn, do we?
For me, it’s one thing to witness Ditsobotla municipality becoming the poster child of corruption and ineptitude. It’s bound to happen somewhere. It’s like constantly being subjected to John Mpe’s incompetence as the mayor of Polokwane municipality who consistently fails to provide water. It is, however, a whole new game when behaviour associated with these rogue municipalities becomes the hallmark of what once was the City of Gold. With Kunene as an MMC, and the Christmas clothes guy as mayor, or is it that guy who says “Joburg is the capital of the city itself, the CBD”? (Don’t laugh), Joburg is truly in the pits.
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