GOOD speech delivered during City of Johannesburg Council Meeting by Matthew Cook, GOOD National Chairperson & City of Johannesburg Councillor:
Speaker, today we are considering the City’s MFMA Section 71 In-Year Financial Report for the periods ending: 30 September 2025, 31 October 2025, 30 November 2025 and 31 December 2025. These are not political documents; they are a statutory instrument designed to give Council, and the public, a transparent view of our financial performance and the picture it presents is mixed.
On the surface, the City reflects a year-to-date surplus. However, a deeper reading of the report reveals structural pressures that demand careful oversight.
The City’s total debtor book now stands at approximately R71.9 billion, with the overwhelming majority older than 90 days. That level of arrears is not merely an accounting issue, it directly affects liquidity, cash flow, and our ability to fund operations sustainably.
Debt impairment continues to rise, and collection rates in key revenue streams are below target. We cannot build financial stability on projected income that is not being realised.
On the expenditure side, employee-related costs have increased significantly, driven in part by overtime. Bulk electricity purchases are above projections, and finance charges are rising.
There are also concerning variances within certain municipal entities, including revenue underperformance and abnormal expenditure trends. These entities form part of our consolidated financial position, and they must be subjected to disciplined oversight.
Speaker, the purpose of an in-year report is early warning. It allows Council to identify emerging risks before they become fiscal crises.
The key risks emerging at this stage are clear:
- Liquidity pressure driven by a growing arrears book
- Rising operating costs
- Increased reliance on penalties and enforcement-based revenue
- Variances within municipal-owned entities
- Slower-than-ideal capital spending performance
The City of Johannesburg is not in collapse. But we are financially stretched. And stretched institutions require discipline, not complacency.
This report must not simply be noted. It must inform corrective action.
Financial governance is not about reacting to crises, it is about preventing them.
GOOD Public Safety: GOOD prioritizes public safety and effective crime prevention strategies.
tacklebox
Bunny Chow. This is a traditional South African Indian dish and usually consists of curry served in a hollowed-out half-loaf of unsliced white bread. It’s best when the bread is soft and fresh and the curry is extra spicy.
Tootsie Killer
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.