Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen
South Africa’s economic hub, Johannesburg, also known as the City of Gold has over the past decade seen a collapsing infrastructure.
Residents are often subject to water outages, on top of poor service delivery and unclean streets.
One of the factors that can be attributed to the city’s fall is the mismanagement of funds and alleged corruption within the City of Johannesburg.
If you do not get to see the decline in your daily life, the Jozi vs Jozi account on social media platform X lays the city’s woes in pictures.
The account seeks to show Johannesburg streets and areas as they were previously, comparing them today.
The account uses Google Maps images to do the comparison.
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The home of Africa’s biggest stock exchange in Africa, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) needs billions of rands to fix collapsing infrastructure.
Earlier this year, the City announced that it needs R3 billion per year in order to fix infrastructure.
This is as residents were subjected to water cuts due to power outages at the Eikenhof pump station.
But Johannesburg residents are not foreign to water cuts, as roughly 10,000 Johannesburg residents woke up without water on Sunday.
The City attributed repairs to a 600mm main water pipe near the corner of Katherine and Pretoria Roads in Sandown as the reason for the water cuts.
Bloomberg reported that the City needs R221 billion to upgrade and maintain road, power and water networks.
This is as the city missed its annual target for water infrastructure investment every year since at least 2008.
The documents seen by Bloomberg detail how “City Power has urgent needs for upgrades and replacement to ensure network reliability and safety.”
The power utility needs at least R44 billion to upgrade its infrastructure, including ageing equipment and resources. Some of the infrastructure is over 50 years old.
ALSO READ: These Joburg areas will experience 10-hour power outages this week
The Northcliff Melville Times reported the power utility’s spokesperson, Isaac Mangena said they do not have the funds for the upgrades.
This is despite Power City receiving money from the National Treasury every year that boosts its budget, funded by customers using its service.
“When running at a loss, you can’t do your work properly, can’t do upgrades and carry out essential maintenance. You also start raiding other sources of income and cut back on work that is not essential for that moment,” said Chris Yelland, energy expert and managing director of EE Business Intelligence.
Residents are living under inhumane conditions due to the governance crisis.
The ANC lost control of the city in 2016, which has resulted in multiple unstable coalitions with different political parties.
Millions of residents of Johannesburg have had 9 mayors since 2016, with the latest to be removed from power being Karabo Gwamanda.
It was reported that Gwamanda does not hold any University qualification or a Matric certificate.
His resignation as mayor was labelled as a mutual agreement between him, his party, and the ANC.
On Friday, 18 October he handed himself over to the police after a warrant of arrest was reportedly issued for him in May on fraud charges.
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To be given a second chance as mayor is Dada Morero. He was mayor in 2022 after DA’s Mpho Phalatse, but his tenure lasted only a month as Phalatse was reinstated.
In an interview with News24, he said residents must not expect any major improvements within the first two years. His term is expected to run until the next local elections in 2026.
“Remember, we won’t be able to do everything in the next two years. We only have a limited time, but if we are able to put systems in place, [Morero’s successor can] implement [changes].”
Some of the country’s wealthiest have started to migrate to Cape Town and the Western Cape, with many citing “political instability” as a reason for their relocation.
Henley & Partners’ Centi-Millionaire Report details that Cape Town is the city with the most centi-millionaires in the country, with Johannesburg second and Durban third.
Centi-millionaires are individuals with liquid investable wealth of $100 million or more.
ALSO READ: Why Cape Town’s CBD is thriving while others struggle
The fall of Johannesburg with its deteriorating service delivery is not a special case.
National Treasury recently detailed how bailing out state-owned enterprises had resulted in poor-quality service delivery.
For the past nine financial years, SOEs have received R456.5 billion of taxpayers’ money, in the form of bailouts. By the end of the current financial year, this amount would have increased to R520.6 billion.
The SOEs which have received bailouts include Eskom; Transnet; South African Airways (SAA); SABC; Land Bank; SASRIA; Denel; Post bank and SAPO; South African Express; DBSA; and Airports Company South Africa.
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