Ramaphosa defends Joburg clean-up before G20 summit

President Cyril Ramaphosa has justified the prettification of Joburg ahead of the G20 summit, acknowledging the city “has really gone down”.

World leaders will descend on Joburg in a few weeks’ time for the G20 summit on November 22-23. Ahead of the event, the authorities have embarked on a clean-up campaign, cleaning and sweeping streets, trimming verges, painting signs and removing litter.

Addressing MPs in a question-and-answer session in the National Assembly Thursday, Ramaphosa said it was natural when visitors came to a country or a household that there was always a clean-up. He had just come from Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, and they all looked flawlessly clean.

The same thing had happened when he attended the G20 in New Delhi in India a few years ago, “and they had spruced up the city. You could see that this was done because visitors were coming.”

Cities and towns in SA had also been improved ahead of the Fifa World Cup in 2010, and the roads and stadiums that had been built then still existed.

Ramaphosa was answering a question by DA MP Ryan Smith, who said the G20 was being held in a city that epitomised SA’s inequality and economic instability “at the hands of a corrupt local government run for decades by your party [the ANC]”.

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“Many Joburg residents are shocked to see areas such as Sandton and Nasrec and main arterial roads being fixed and upgraded as part of a beautification campaign by the national government so as not to embarrass the ANC in front of G20 delegates when they arrive.

“Could you explain to the residents of Joburg why the state of their city suddenly matters to the national government when the world is watching but not when they have languished without water, electricity and basic service delivery for the past decade?” Smith asked Ramaphosa.

The president noted that when the G20 visitors leave, “we must insist that what we have done and been seen to have done must continue”. The improvements had to serve as a stepping stone and a benchmark.

Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi and Joburg mayor Dada Morero indicated that having reached this new level, they did not want to fall back to what Joburg had been before.

“I have been one of those who has expressed my displeasure, my anger, my dissatisfaction with the state of the city that I was born in and grew up in,” Ramaphosa told MPs. “I have driven around the city, sometimes at night and sometimes during the day, and have seen how that city has really gone down.”

This was the reason why he had established the presidential Joburg working group in March, as he had done in eThekwini, which was being turned around. The president said there was a lot of work that had to be done in cities throughout the country.

The presidential Joburg working group was set up to accelerate service delivery, rejuvenate the inner city, improve safety and infrastructure, and stabilise the city’s finances.

“Our local government situation is not pleasing at all. We must all admit to that,” Ramaphosa said. “But rather than navel gazing and pointing fingers, I call on all of us to stand up and do something and help to improve our cities and our local government.”