{"id":784023,"date":"2024-07-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=784023"},"modified":"2024-07-24T11:51:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T09:51:48","slug":"south-africas-richest-city-is-in-serious-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/784023\/south-africas-richest-city-is-in-serious-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s richest city is in serious trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The City of Johannesburg is collapsing with widespread corruption, water and electricity outages, hijacked buildings, traffic jams, and rampant crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the Johannesburg Crisis Alliance (JCA) called on the city\u2019s Executive Mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, to resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CJA made this call in the wake of the significant decline in citizen confidence and trust in the leadership of the executive mayor and his mayoral committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alliance highlighted many severe problems in Johannesburg, with a deepening crisis looming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It pointed to the recent introduction of a R230 fixed fee for prepaid electricity users in addition to significant electricity price increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These significant price increases, which the CJA called \u201carrogant, uncaring, and insensitive,\u201d occurred amid widespread electricity outages across the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years of neglect and underinvestment forced City Power to implement load reduction to prevent the collapse of its power systems and infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Power needs to invest billions to fix this ageing and inadequate electricity infrastructure, and it does not have the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava said Joburg residents logged about 4,000 electrical faults with City Power per day, but it only had enough manpower to attend to 800 such issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why Johannesburg introduced big electricity price increases and the unpopular fixed fee. It needs more money, fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This fixed fee has been widely criticised as disproportionally hurting poorer households and putting strain on struggling citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another big problem is the city\u2019s crumbling water infrastructure. The CJA said citizens have experienced intermittent water supplies since 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have also been prolonged water cuts in recent weeks despite public assurances by Joburg Water that the supply is being managed adequately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has reached such severe levels that the water outages have resulted in street protests in different parts of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg\u2019s water infrastructure has not kept pace with its rapid population growth and cannot cope with increased demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city has more than enough water. The issue is getting the water to the end user as the infrastructure deteriorates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is estimated that, due to leaks, between 45% and 50% of all water in Gauteng pumped from the bulk water supplier, Rand Water, does not reach an end user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water scientist Anthony Turton said the water supply is being mismanaged, resulting in water shortages in parts while dams are sufficiently full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg needs R25 billion to fix its water infrastructure and potentially billions more to replace outdated equipment to meet increasing demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The City of Johannesburg\u2019s collapse extends far beyond the collapse of the electricity and water infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Widespread corruption and mismanagement have resulted in the city landing in financial problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MMC Finance said the city needs to loan R2.5 billion from Agence Franqaise de D\u00e9velopement (AFD) to cover budget shortfalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the richest city in South Africa, this budget shortfall should have never occurred. It has more than enough money to make ends meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Johannesburg Crisis Alliance added that there is a collapse of services regarding road maintenance and cleanliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many residents complain that traffic lights don\u2019t work, which causes unnecessary congestion and decreased productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has become commonplace to see unemployed people directing traffic at busy intersections due to traffic light problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem is streetlights. Tens of thousands of streetlights in Johannesburg are out, creating security problems and endangering motorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crime and corruption are also huge challenges. Wits University Adjunct Professor Alex van den Heever said corrupt government officials had turned Johannesburg into a \u201ccrime scene\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the rising issue of hijacked buildings in Johannesburg is one example of government failure in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you had to look now at the Johannesburg CBD, it is becoming a crime scene overall. There is complete neglect from one end to the other. It looks like a failed state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

van den Heever added that when you see something like this, it is invariably because there is endemic corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the public officials responsible for oversight and management of Johannesburg\u2019s buildings and infrastructure have no incentive to do their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re making money from its destruction, not from its upkeep. There is no other explanation for what we\u2019re seeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely worrying because the collapse is rapid at this point, and there appears to be absolutely no plan to address this at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: Major shake-up coming for Gauteng metros<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The City of Johannesburg is collapsing with widespread corruption, water and electricity outages, hijacked buildings, traffic jams, and rampant crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":784025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2016,7376,20277,20238,20278],"class_list":["post-784023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-city-of-johannesburg","tag-city-power","tag-johannesburg-crisis-alliance-jca","tag-kabelo-gwamanda","tag-tshifularo-mashava"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784023"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":784056,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784023\/revisions\/784056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}