Johannesburg: How to fix a city teetering on the brink of failure
- William Gumede
The South African national government may have to intervene on behalf of Johannesburg residents as the city appears to be accelerating into becoming a failed ci
Johannesburg is on the verge of becoming a failed city, almost like a failed state, like many African failed states at the country level, but in the case of Johannesburg, a failed city, beset by systemic corruption, lawlessness, infrastructure collapse, and the informalisation and deindustrialisation of the city economy.
Intervention by residents, businesses and civil society to prevent Johannesburg’s final plunge into failed city status, like many other post-independence African failed cities, is now urgent. Unless there is intervention now, it will be harder to turnaround infrastructure decline, lawlessness, the culture of corruption and informalisation of the economy.
Many African failed cities have deteriorated to such an extent, that locals often deemed these cities to be unsalvable, and new parallel cities are then built instead, as it will be cheaper, less cumbersome and easier to start from scratch building another city, then rescuing the failed the city.
Unless there is an intervention now to safe Johannesburg, it may be too costly to turn around, and it would be easier to build an entirely new city, like many African governments have done, when cities decay to such an extent it will be too costly or too long, to salvage them. Already, the Johannesburg Central Business District has moved from the inner city to Sandton, very soon, an entire parallel Johannesburg will spring up because the current city is too far on the failure spectrum.
Johannesburg is teetering on the brink, with infrastructure collapsing, frequent water and power outages, and rubble piling up. Public transport is broken. Rule of law in parts of the city has collapsed, streets are unsafe, buildings and businesses are regularly hijacked. The city has run out of funds and may be bankrupt soon – becoming the biggest South African city to go under.
Factors contributing to the city’s fall is citizens consistently electing stunningly useless political leaders based on party loyalty, rather than competence, record of performance and honesty.
The city public administration is largely incompetent because of patronage appointments. City entities have frequently been used for self-enrichment. Corruption is endemic. Planning, prudent financial management and infrastructure maintenance have been shambolic.
Public participation structures in many cases have been captured, with party supporters handpicked to become public participants in ward committees, public hearings and Integrated Development Plans meetings.
A ward committee is a body which represents a wide variety of community interests and meets regularly – and scrutinise the performance, budget and decisions of the municipality. It is chaired by a ward councillor. Municipalities can decide whether to have ward committees or not. Many municipalities do not establish ward committees. Some that do establish ward committees handpick their party supporters to make up the ward committees.
Every municipality is required to formulate Integrated Development Plans (IDP), which set out the municipality’s goals, economic, infrastructure and social development plans and strategies to manage the municipality’s finances. The whole idea of an IDP is that is supposed to involve integrated planning by different municipal departments, in coordination with non-state partners, business, civil society, public institutions, community groups and residents.
However, in the overwhelming cases, the IDP process either does not take place, or has been captured, packed with token ‘representatives’ from the non-state. Integrated planning, budgeting and decision-making which involves all municipality departments rarely happen. This means that the quality of decisions, planning and budgeting is generally poor.
What can residents, businesses and civil society do to reclaim Johannesburg?
Clearly, residents must stop voting for political leaders who have never managed anything before. Competence-based voting must become the norm.
Sadly, the majority of the city’s voters still do so based on past ‘struggle’ credentials, on colour or ethnic affiliation – so-called ‘black solidarity’ voting, on ideology and based on non-competence based considerations such as candidates singing ‘revolutionary’ songs, blaming ‘enemy’ groups for self-inflicted government crises.
This means, the same corrupt, incompetent and clueless politicians are voted in repeatedly, with them getting more and more unaccountable because residents vote for them no matter how they perform, with corruption and public services worsening year after year.
Business, civil society and public institutions are key in starting voting education programs that conscientize voters to vote based on present performance; and link voting based on considerations other than performance to increasing state failure, corruption and neglect.
The city public administration will have to be professionalised. Residents, business and civil society must scrutinize key city administration appointments, and oppose them if they are incompetent, corrupt and patronage-based. Procurement must also similarly be monitored by residents, civil society and companies. Residents must demand that contracts are transparent and value for money, that the previous performance records, and who ownership of the companies be made publicly available and that losers in municipal contracts and administrative appointments be publicised so that residents can make comparisons between those who have been appointed and those who were left out.
Residents must publicly out corrupt, incompetent and uncaring city political and administrative officials – and so shame them into accountability.
Residents must take legal action to hold political leaders and public administrators personally liable for failure. In November 2024, the Supreme Court of Appeal in a watershed judgement, clarified Section 32 of the Municipal Finance Management Act, ruling that municipal officials can be held personally responsible for intentionally or negligently incurring unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
There must be a mass clean-up of the city. Residents, businesses, public institutions, such as universities and NGOs must get involve at local level, from cleaning up streets, forming police community forums. Residents must join ward committees and engage with IDP processes.
The city must involve business, civil society, professionals and residents in helping it deliver services. Residents who clean up their homes and surroundings must get rates' discounts. Businesses that set-up shop in neglected areas must also be rewarded.
Finally, the South African national government may have to intervene on behalf of Johannesburg residents as the city appears to be accelerating into becoming a failed city. South Africa's White paper on Local Government makes provision for national government to intervene in municipalities "where municipalities, through inefficiency or a lack of commitment to deliver and develop goals, fail to provide affordable services." If despite all efforts by residents, civil society, business and communities, the city leaders remain unresponsive, approaching the national government may have to be petitioned to dissolve the city political leadership.
William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)
This is an edited extract from Prof William Gumede’s comments at the webinar “Protecting Democracy: How community voices can shape South Africa’s future”, as part of the Episode 10 of OUTA’s CAN Co-Governance Series.