Photos: South Africa’s richest city is falling apart – Johannesburg’s collapse
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Video: Blacks massive wastage, massive inefficiency: Why Africa Wasted $1.4 Trillion in Foreign Aid
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[The photos are at the source link at the bottom. It will give you an idea of how things collapse. Jan]
The City of Johannesburg’s decline is accelerating as years of mismanagement and corruption have steadily eroded its institutions and infrastructure.
The social media account Jozi vs Jozi has highlighted this, posting regular images of the decline of specific parts of the city. The account was launched last month and already has over 30,000 followers.
The account posts images of well-known areas in Johannesburg from 2023 and compares them to how those places appeared around a decade ago. These images show a city with crumbling infrastructure.
As the account makes clear, Joburg’s collapse was entirely avoidable. It was marked by a decade of mismanagement, political infighting, and corruption.
In the past few months, the city has been plagued by sporadic water shortages and warnings from Rand Water that water supply is critically low.
This looming crisis is almost a microcosm of everything wrong with the City of Johannesburg (CoJ), with the sporadic water shortages symptomatic of deeper problems in the municipality.
Bloomberg reported earlier this year that the city had missed its annual target for water infrastructure investment every year since at least 2008.
“We can say that places like Johannesburg Water are a perfect example of state failure at a local level,” water scientist Dr Anthony Turton said.
Turton explained that the municipality can be considered a failure as it has shown an inability to correct problems despite multiple warnings and signs of failure.
To fix this problem alone, the city would need to invest R25 billion and work around the clock for 18 months.
These are not isolated incidents. Johannesburg’s municipal infrastructure has deteriorated for years because of a lack of maintenance and investment.
The city is now defined by chaos, crime, and corruption, exacerbated by political infighting and incompetent public servants.
At the heart of the dysfunction in Johannesburg is a governance crisis. Since the ANC lost control of the city in 2016, unstable coalitions have resulted in eight mayors since 2019.
The previous mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, had not completed school and had not obtained a matric certificate. He is a member of a party that holds 1% of the municipality’s 270 seats.
Kabelo Gwamanda
Former Joburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda
The Jozi vs. Jozi account highlighted that things were not always this way and that the city is still South Africa’s economic hub.
The city is home to JSE Limited, the largest stock exchange on the continent and the 16th biggest in the world.
Johannesburg, according to the CoJ, generates 16.5% of the country’s wealth and employs 12% of the national workforce, with more than 70% of South African companies headquartered in the city.
The city still has the largest concentration of millionaires in Africa, housing 12,300 dollar millionaires, 25 centi-millionaires, and two billionaires.
However, the decline of the city’s infrastructure and rise of crime has resulted in many of the country’s richest fleeing Joburg for the Western Cape.
The number of millionaires living within its boundaries has declined by 44% over the past decade.
In contrast, the country’s other centres of wealth, which are spread around the Western and Eastern Cape, are seeing a surge in their millionaire population.
Cape Town is the largest beneficiary of this semigration trend, with the number of millionaires in the city rising 20% in the past decade.
Cape Town is on track to overtake Johannesburg to become Africa’s wealthiest city by 2030, and Henley & Partners expects several major Johannesburg-based companies to move their head offices to the city by then.
The declining quality of service delivery in Johannesburg fuels this trend, as many who can afford to move to better-run parts of the country.
Research from Henley & Partners and New World Wealth shows that millionaires move based on their personal safety and security, basic service delivery, and political stability.
Simply put, Johannesburg is no longer a city that can give that to its citizens.
Joburg Mayor Dada Morero
Joburg’s new mayor, Dada Morero, is under no illusions about the task at hand to resurrect South Africa’s economic hub.
His administration estimates the city needs R221 billion to catch up on maintenance and overdue upgrades across its road, electricity, and water networks.
Morero believes that leadership and “appetite” will get things right this time.
“Residents are not asking for too much. They are only asking that the taps must run, the robots must work, the roads must be smooth, and the lights must be on,” he said upon becoming mayor.
“We need to focus on those key issues and deliver on them.”
Morero faces some significant challenges, with over 45% of the city’s water supply being lost to leakages before reaching the end user and 35% of tis electricity is lost through illegal connections.
The new administration plans to borrow money to carry out maintenance needed to keep its vital infrastructure functioning.
The city of 5 million residents must also deal with an estimated 18,000 people arriving every month, many of whom have nowhere to sleep or make a living, adding to pressures that drive up lawlessness.
Morero’s top priority is tackling crime, alongside the simple enforcement of bylaws that are ignored wholesale and have turned parts of downtown into a mess.
“The big corporates have left there because of crime. They can’t have their staff afraid to come to work,” he said.
“Cars disappear from parking lots or, as you come in, there is a smash-and-grab.”
Morero has a limited window of opportunity to make progress as the country will head to the polls for its local elections in two years’ time. It is unclear whether he will be in power after those elections.
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