I do not like to lament. Better to hope than to despair. Better still to work hard to improve things. Best to mobilise energy and resources to solve problems.
But the position of the City of Johannesburg is exceedingly lamentable. The alarm bells are ringing loud and clear and have been for some time. And yet there appears to be little response.
They say a person goes bankrupt very slowly and then very fast. I wonder if that is what is happening to the city’s administration. Johannesburg is in a scrap with Eskom over the payment of bulk electricity. This is likely to be far more than a metering issue. It may be the canary collapsing in the mine, signalling that danger is imminent.
There is great irony in the fact that the city is arguing that it should not have to pay Eskom because the bill is incorrect. Countless customers of City Power have argued exactly that for years. Pay now, they are told, argue later. Pay now or we will cut you off.
While there may indeed be legitimate disputes between Eskom and the city about the bulk meter, there seems little doubt that Johannesburg’s reluctance to pay reflects extreme financial stress. Eskom has approached the courts to try to force the city to pay, a step that signals extreme efforts to collect.
Over the past few years Johannesburg’s main solution to its financial problems has been to throttle investment in infrastructure and maintenance in favour of meeting immediate operational expenses. This is why the city’s infrastructure looks the way it does.
This solution is a disaster in the longer term, but will also fail in the short term if the underlying issues are not addressed. The city’s biggest expenses are salaries, bulk energy and bulk water. These cannot be put off indefinitely. It also has debts, including to bondholders. If these are not paid the city will no longer be able to access credit markets.
Meanwhile, Johannesburg has found money to enter into leases for expensive offices for its officials and staff, rather than housing them in the Metro Centre, which has in fact been closed down, with the city claiming it represented an unmanageable fire risk.
In the words of Ferial Haffajee writing in the Daily Maverick, the Metro Centre has not so much been closed down as it has been “abandoned”. Abandoned with furniture, printers and all sorts of equipment left to rot. And now large sections of the building have been invaded by homeless people and vandals.
Photographs in various publications show the building being stripped. This is the head office of the City of Johannesburg, a multibillion-rand organisation. And yet this hardly makes a ripple in our national consciousness.
Meanwhile, it is increasingly difficult to get plans passed by the city. The planning department only opens for a few hours a week. This is not a mere inconvenience. If plans cannot be passed, buildings cannot be built. Aside from the terrible effect on the economy, this will have a huge effect on the city’s future revenues. New properties are the life blood of future income flows.
And now the City of Johannesburg has lost its long battle to keep city manager Floyd Brink in place despite his unlawful appointment. The courts have been forced to rule on this matter a second time as the city ducked and dived in response to the first court order.
Even the running of the courts is hamstrung by the city’s inability to deliver basic services, with the Constitutional Court having been forced to suspend in-court hearings because there is no water supply. The republic’s apex court cannot get a water supply. Surely this cannot be allowed to continue.
Johannesburg is the centre of Africa’s largest economy and its administration is in chaos. The city is beset by corruption and mismanagement. This requires more than a lament. This requires action.
• Bethlehem is an economic development specialist and partner at Genesis Analytics. She has worked in the forestry, renewable energy, housing and property sectors as well as in local and national government.
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