Changing Johannesburg will take united residents, ethical leaders and a tick-list

This is OUTA’s take on what came out of the Joburg Crisis Alliance meeting on Thursday 26 July 2024.

In Kliptown, Soweto, the birthplace of the Freedom Charter, residents do not have electricity, water, decent roads or economic opportunities.

Residents from Naturena have visited City of Johannesburg offices so often with service delivery complaints that the city officials and the residents know each other’s names.

In Midrand, even well-off Joburg residents know where all the boreholes are, essential knowledge in a city with unreliable water supplies.

In the crowded inner-city areas of Yeoville, Berea and Hillbrow, residents have to put up with terrible services. In Yeoville when the power goes off, there is also immediately no water.

This is the picture that the Rivonia Circle director Tessa Dooms paints of communities in the City of Joburg, after talking to residents in vastly different areas across the city with the common problem of failed service delivery.

“We are all saying that there is a need for us to come together in solidarity and stand with each other and for each other. It is no longer possible for us to fight in just small corners, and then for the councillors and the mayco (mayoral committee) and the executive mayor only to show up when it is suitable for them to do so,” said Dooms.

Dooms was speaking at the Joburg Crisis Alliance (JCA) briefing on Thursday (25 July 2024), where alliance leaders explained why they are fed up with the collapse of city services, their demand for better leadership in the city council, and the urgent need for Joburg residents to get involved if they want a functioning city.

The JCA convening organisations are the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), Action for Accountability, Defend Our Democracy and the Johannesburg Inner-City Partnership (JICP). They were joined on Thursday by the Rivonia Circle.

Join the protest on Saturday

On Saturday 27 July, the JCA is holding a protest outside the City of Joburg’s Metro Centre in Braamfontein, demanding the removal of mayor Kabelo Gwamanda and his mayoral team. They are also calling for a review of the prepaid electricity tariffs, an end to unplanned water and electricity cuts, decisive measures to combat corruption and protect whistleblowers, and proper consultation with residents, business and civil society.

The Metro Centre illustrates the problem: partially abandoned by city officials since a fire last year as the city has failed to repair it, and now there is a plan for the bankrupt city to spend billions of rand rebuilding it.

“Saturday is not a protest, it’s a statement that this fake mayor’s term is over,” said Ishmael Mkhabela of the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership and co-convenor of the JCA.

OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage called on residents who were not happy with city management to join the protest. “We want you to show up, because the more people that show up, the more it is visible to the City that change has to happen.”

The issues

The JCA campaign was sparked off by what Neeshan Balton, executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and JCA co-convener, called “the arrogant, uncaring and insensitive” implementation of the new R230 per month surcharge on prepaid electricity.

A range of issues were raised at the JCA briefing. They include:

• Water supply – the most basic service a municipality is required to provide – is erratic, with prolonged water cuts;
• Ongoing widespread electricity outages and load reduction;
• Inadequate public consultation on key issues such as the new prepaid electricity surcharge;
• The virtual collapse of services in terms of road maintenance, cleanliness and the provision of affordable housing;
• The tragic assassination of City of Joburg forensic investigator Zenzele Sithole, a lead investigator into corruption in the city;
• The failure by the city council to hold failing city managers to account. For example, nobody has been held to account for the disastrous fire in the city’s own Usindiso building in Marshalltown in August last year, in which 76 people died;
• The bloated city salaries in the face of the chronic failure to spend on services;
• Ongoing billing errors;
• Inadequate financial management;
• The city’s decision to borrow R2.5 billion from Agence Française de Dévelopement (AFD) to cover budget shortfalls from the last financial year 2023/24 (the council finally agreed on this on Thursday 25 July);
• Ongoing corruption;
• The collapse of city entities, some hijacked by the corrupt;
• The city’s clampdown on information – for example, council agendas and documents – which residents should be able to access easily.

The call for new leadership: find the best people

The JCA call for the removal of the mayor is not an indication of support for or opposition to a particular political party or individual or even a coalition, but a statement of intolerance for poor leadership and a demand that whoever is in charge should be held to account.

“Fundamentally, this is about accountability at the top of an institution,” said Balton. “This call is focused on the mayor and his mayoral committee, because that’s where accountability first and foremost must reside.”

Dooms said residents deserved competent leadership. “It doesn’t matter who is in power: unless people are accountable, it matters nothing. They can change the political players all they want: what we want is accountable, competent leadership, politically and in the management of the City.”

“This message is to the politicians: you need to stop playing the games that you are playing and we need to get in place the right leadership,” said Duvenage.

“It’s such a tragedy that the leadership that is presiding over this city has been very disappointing,” said Reverend Moss Ntlha of Defend Our Democracy. “A lot of our politicians don’t seem to know what it is that they are hired to do. For many of them it is still a gravy train. For many of them, it is an opportunity to eat. For many of them, they don’t know what is wrong with what they are doing.”

The JCA emphasised that the councillors have a responsibility to look around the council, and choose the best people for the leadership roles.

“If those councillors amongst themselves can’t find the best people, maybe it’s time for them to step down and for us to do mass by-elections across the city so we can get people in who are competent. 2026 is too far,” said Dooms.

Fixing the city requires actively involved residents armed with a tick-list

JCA leaders emphasised that the involvement of residents is crucial if they want to live in a functioning city.

“This is not a one-day campaign. It’s starting on Saturday, but we are going to continue to put our foot on their necks until we have leadership that is responsive,” said Dooms.

JCA suggestions for campaign actions include protests, sit-ins at city offices, citizen hearings where councillors are called to account, demand for intervention by provincial and national government (including the President, who has not responded to a JCA letter asking for intervention), raising the collapse of the city in Parliament, and possible legal action to dissolve the council.

This requires the involvement of residents, civil society organisations, faith-based organisations and business.

“The management of the city is never going to fix Joburg on their own. They are broke and they’re going out for more loans,” said Duvenage. “We have to get out of this hole collectively, and we have to do so with joint, cooperative leadership with the various communities.”

Dooms urged residents to work together. “We need to get a tick-list of the things that need to happen in the next six months, in the next 12 months, in fact in the next three months. We need a list of demands that is going to be time-bound, month by month, clear, deliverable, and we have to show up for each other for those demands.”

Duvenage said a lot of the city’s problems involve failure of basic management. “We need professional leadership in every department in the city. We need good finance management and we need to fight the issue of corruption. The political leaders have a lot to answer for here.”

Balton said it would be a long road but there was sufficient wisdom in the city to find solutions. “The dysfunctionality is huge. Fixing it will take a long time. We think we are at the starting block only now. So bear with us as we build. We need everybody on board as we begin this process.”