A few weeks before a watershed provincial and national election, Johannesburg executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda on Thursday sought to paint a rosy picture of his coalition government's achievements during his state of the city address (Soca).
While acknowledging the socioeconomic challenges bedevilling SA’s economic and financial hub, he harped on some some key successes of the unity government running the city.
The Joburg metro, with a population of 6-million, is faced by a slew of service delivery challenges including water and power cuts; illegal mining, violent crime, high joblessness, crumbling infrastructure, hijacked buildings, low revenue collection, housing backlog and illegal immigration.
Despite these challenges, Gwamanda, an Al Jama-ah councillor, painted Joburg as a resilient city where 98.3% of households had access to potable water, 94.1% (electricity), 93% (sanitation), with refuse removal services extended to 90.5% of households. This ensured every part of the metro had basic amenities required for a dignified existence, said Gwamanda.
The mayor said he took great pride that the city and all its entities had achieved an unqualified audit opinion, saying this underscored “our unwavering commitment to transparency and prudent financial stewardship”.
“It is a powerful affirmation of the effectiveness of our internal systems and the robustness of our control mechanisms given the permacrisis we inherited from the multiparty government.
“Although we face budget constraints and resource limitations, our dedication to delivering quality services remains unwavering,” he said.
He said the metro has adopted an intensive revenue collection and enhancement initiative to assist in recouping outstanding revenue to the city resulting in it remaining “financially stable”.
“We have also taken a hardline against the scourge of illegality, where defaulting ratepayers illegally reconnect themselves despite our actions to recover monies owed to the city. The city has rebased its budget as a prudent response to a strained revenue base and as a responsible action to ensure we deliver on our commitments while maintaining stringent fiscal discipline and governance.” The city remained “financially stable”.
The metro’s efforts, said Gwamanda, “centre on sustainability, and we have achieved noteworthy progress in improving access to basic services in informal settlements, efficiently managing waste and advancing infrastructure development”.
“Our initiatives targeting housing, electricity, water and sanitation, as well as overall environmental health, have produced tangible outcomes that positively impact countless households within our city.”
Despite the official dismantling of apartheid 30 years ago, Gwamanda said its impact still echoed through Johannesburg’s social structure, “resulting in entrenched socioeconomic disparities and spatial inequalities”.
“We acknowledge the water challenges that we have recently faced. As a city, we are faced with a rapid rise in water demand that is threatening the sustainability of our water supply and straining the capacity of our systems.
“Our water use per capita far exceeds that which is the standard in developed and thriving cities of the world. There is an urgent need to control and manage demand in order to ensure we create reliability and sustainability in our supply environment,” he said.
“The Water Security Strategy is geared towards addressing threats to the city’s urban water cycle while also capitalising on opportunities to transform Johannesburg into a sustainable, resilient, and adaptive city,” said Gwamanda.
“With seven strategic responses and 67 action plans developed for both short and long-term implementation, the strategy aims to ensure sustainable water management and future water security.”
The issue of water has become a key political and electioneering theme ahead of the 2024 national and provincial elections on May 29.
“Johannesburg Water has a publicised backlog of R27bn in infrastructure investment required to fully cater for the demands of the city. Despite limited resources available, the city has several notable projects currently in implementation and whose completion will provide meaningful relief to residents in the city,” the mayor said.
“I am most excited that the Brixton and Crosby bulk infrastructure projects, which have a combined investment value of R512m, are progressing well and will help us resolve the challenges of the Commando water system.”
On fighting crime, the mayor said the newly relaunched Tactical Response Unit of the JMPD (Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department) was making great strides in enforcing law and order in the inner city and in targeting violent crimes.
“This capability has also been enhanced with the deployment of CCTV cameras in partnership with Vumacam to provide the city with access to over 5,000 cameras in the city, enhancing the ability of the JMPD to detect and respond to crime.
“The Tactical Response Unit has over the last year recovered a total of 570 vehicles, 87 illegal firearms and conducted 127 drug busts in the city. In a co-ordinated manner and with the deployment of intelligent tactics and systems, we are slowly making inroads in our fight against crime in the city.”
However, the mayor said while progress had been made in service delivery and infrastructure development, “there is acknowledgment of areas needing improvement”.
“This underscores the need for intensified efforts in ensuring we deliver basic services and improve our drive towards capital expenditure,” he said. “The impact of our efforts must also be reflected in our ability to create a conducive environment for businesses to thrive and for small enterprises to grow within the Joburg economy.”
The metro had launched the youth directorate aimed at empowering the youth with developing critical and scarce skills. A total of 350 bursaries had been awarded to young people at a cost of R14m for 2023/24. The city had also appointed 594 interns to help them get exposure and training in preparation for the world of work.
Gwamanda said the metro government the unity government inherited 18 months ago “in a state of permacrisis” was increasingly equipped and capable to deliver on the city’s needs and aspirations.
“We are confident in our abilities, plans and programmes to set Johannesburg on a path of recovery and restoration. Our acknowledgment of challenges is not a concession to defeat but a clarion call to action,” he said.
DA Joburg caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku said: “The executive mayor said nothing to the residents that inspire hope. His speech shows that the city is in free fall and total collapse. He has not touched on issues that residents are experiencing daily. He is completely out of touch.”
She said the official opposition party would respond in detail during a debate of the Soca on Friday.
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