Joburg Soca: ‘Coalitions under DA focused on settling political scores’ – Gwamanda

Johannesburg Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda said coalitions under the Democratic Alliance (DA) have been unstable and focused only on settling political scores instead of providing service to the residents of the City of Johannesburg.

Gwamanda’s State of the City Address (Soca) comes a month after he took over the reins to lead Johannesburg, South Africa’s richest metro, with a budget of more than R70 billion.

The city has been facing service delivery crises, poor financial management and disputes between political parties in the past year.

Gwamanda, in his speech, outlined plans to “foster transparency, civil engagement, the city’s vision and keeping with strategic priorities”.

Political scores

Gwamanda said post 2016, the City of Johannesburg has been governed by various coalitions which introduced a new era in the politics and governance of Johannesburg.

“This new political reality, has introduced a myriad of challenges, both for governance and politics… More importantly, it has introduced unprecedented levels of instability especially under the various DA-led multi-party governments that have sought to settle political scores as opposed to serving the residents.”

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Finance

Gwamanda said the city is taking steps to ensure that “every rand in our budget is utilised effectively”.

“By the end of June 2021, the Government of Local Unity’s (GLU) audited financial statements reflected a city with a healthy cash balance of R6.6 billion.

“Upon our return in January 2023, from the multiparty government, we found a near bankrupt municipality sitting with over R6 billion in unpaid supplier invoices… Without a financially sound city, we will not be able to deliver basic services to our residents,” he said.

Load shedding

Gwamanda said load shedding remained a threat to the City of Joburg.

“Providing reliable and sustainable power supply to our residents and businesses in the city is one of the foremost priorities of the Government of Local Unity. Mitigating the impact of planned outages is a matter that is receiving our urgent attention through City Power.”

The mayor also addressed the issues surrounding cable theft.

“We are facing a huge problem of cable theft in our country. So, the City of Johannesburg vows to urgently attend to the rampant and increasing cases of vandalism and cable theft. We need a solution truly.”

Water

Gwamanda said there is also investment in water infrastructure.

“One of our service delivery imperatives is that Joburg Water continues to invest in building and upgrading the bulk water infrastructure.

“The city will implement a geyser installation accredited training programme in all regions of the city, targeting 140 residents as part of our comprehensive skills development strategy,” he said.

Human settlements

The mayor said the development of Southern Farms has been approved and the development agreement has been finalised.

“After a long process, the implementation of the Southern Farms project will finally commence in the 2023/24 financial year.

“Through collaboration between the three spheres of government, Lufhereng has been allocated additional funding by National Treasury to boost the construction of infrastructure in the ongoing housing development.

“In March 2023, council approved 181 recognised informal settlements to be upgraded including identification of suitable land for de-densifying congested and densely populated areas,” he said

Crime

On crime fighting in Johannesburg, Gwamanda stressed that the city will recruit about 2 000 crime fighting wardens.

“These dedicated individuals will work alongside law enforcement agencies, communities, to strengthen crime prevention initiatives, improve community policing, and enhance safety and security of our city.”

Jobs

The mayor said the correlation between unemployment and crime requires no study-text quotation.

“In this room, too many of us have seen the impact of unemployment on the social health of our communities. We must renew our efforts to create economic growth and reduce unemployment, with a special focus on the youth.”

Inner city

Gwamanda said the regeneration of the inner City of Joburg remains a mayoral priority and will also remain a key priority for all departments and municipal owned entities.

“To make the inner city clean, we will focus on coordination with all stakeholders involved in the cleaning of the inner city.”

New path

Gwamanda added the city has set out on a new path to restore the heartbeat of Johannesburg and make the city work for its residents.

“On this path, we will double our efforts to ensure that potholes are fixed, traffic lights work, grass is cut regularly, and indeed street lights function.

“We shall not be judged by how many times our actions grabbed the headlines or how often our utterances are deemed worthy of soundbites by the mainstream media. Nor shall we be judged by the frequency with which we trend on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media platform.

“We will be judged on the basis of one thing and one thing only, how we work every day as a collective to make the lives of the people of Johannesburg better,” Gwamanda said.

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