Lesufi’s ‘back to basics’ for Joburg is lost in empty promises, potholes and cynicism

On Sunday, Premier Panyaza Lesufi spoke at a Gauteng ANC gathering, promising that the ANC in the province would focus on improving services.

Although he is the premier, Lesufi is no longer the party’s elected leader of the province, but a “co-convenor” along with Amos Masondo, after the national ANC took over much of its provincial machinery.

Lesufi’s promises will no doubt stoke optimism in certain quarters.

News24 reported that he promised that a “working group will meet weekly to fix all the traffic lights … [and] all municipalities led by the ANC and our coalition partners have now finally established units to attend to potholes and to repair all the potholes in our province as soon as possible”.

But, as weary residents know all too well, there have been many promises for many years about the problems that Joburg faces.

In parts of the city, traffic lights have not worked for years.

This is because of a dispute between the Joburg Roads Agency and the province about who is responsible for them.

Neither side has budged for years, meaning the traffic lights remain unoperational.

Read more: Lights out in Joburg – thousands of traffic signals on the blink amid power cuts, budget blues and vandalism

Potholes, of course, are everywhere. In some places, they are incredibly deep, showing how long they have been there.

Some potholes are eventually attended to, in part thanks to the private sector, where at least one company is filling in potholes.

Worse, some of the infrastructure is dangerous.

Touching dangling electrical wires can be fatal; drains are left as massive holes in the ground. This reporter once caught his young child at the last second as she started falling into a 5m-deep hole at a park.

A man uses a bridge in Joburg that has been left damaged for two months. (Photo: Stephen Grootes)

What makes it worse is that the politicians can no longer be believed. For years, the ANC has promised there would be clean governance in Joburg.

But as Currency News explained recently, the way your money is wasted is simply obscene. Nearly 10% of the money the City of Joburg spends from its R83-billion budget is classed as unauthorised.

Officials who misspend this money get off with virtually no punishment.

This explains why the city may be on the cusp of a rates revolt, where residents refuse to pay for services they don’t receive.

The President’s plan

Considering the symbolic importance of Joburg in the local elections that must be held before February 2027, it would be rational to assume that the ANC would focus on Gauteng in general, and this city in particular.

This would inform President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement nearly two months ago that he would create a Presidential Working Group for Joburg.

Strangely, there appears to be no online record of who is on the working group. While there are several references to the fact that it includes civil society groups, the names on the list have not been widely publicised.

Read more: Johannesburg’s collapse, capture, corruption is a national risk, President to hear.

It is known that the group includes officials from the City of Joburg and its entities, the private sector, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), Jozi My Jozi, the SA Property Owners Association and the Joburg Crisis Alliance.

Considering that groups like Outa have been very outspoken in their criticism of the government and the Joburg Council in recent years, the fact that this group is working together with those two entities is quite extraordinary.

At least one of the working group’s members is very positive.

Angela Rivers is the General Manager of the Johannesburg Property Owners and Managers Association, working with the Joburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the workgroup.

She says the meetings are “well-attended, by everyone from the council, from the President’s office, and the private sector is committed. And the meetings start on time. The one meeting we finished at 19.30 at night; 55 people logged in at the start, and 55 people logged out when it finished.”

She also says the nine workstreams have been given strict deadlines to come up with short-, medium- and long-term plans. Ramaphosa is then expected to put his stamp of approval on the plans, “and then we have to make it happen”.

Considering the lived experience of most people in Joburg, it is surprising to hear such confidence from someone who has been so intimately involved with the city for so long.

New promises from old faces

Of course, for many people in Joburg, services and infrastructure have declined so consistently for so long that it is difficult to believe any promises of improvement.

Lesufi’s latest claims have been made before. Crucially, the people who run the city have not changed.

There is a big risk that some members of the working group pull out, or that Joburg Council members refuse to implement the group’s decisions.

Some might feel that if they make real progress, and services and infrastructure do improve, the ANC and Lesufi will claim responsibility.

This would be seen as unfair and could lead to a dispute just before the local elections.

The depths of the crisis, both in terms of infrastructure and corruption, should not be underestimated.

Helen Botes is still the acting city manager, despite a series of apparent scandals over her management of properties and money.

The scale of the changes and the amount of money needed at entities like Joburg Water and City Power is huge, and the cash will have to come from somewhere.

Most Joburgers must surely believe that it’s highly unlikely anything will change for the better in the city in the next two years.

It’s also unlikely that the results of the local elections will change things significantly, making it hard to see a coalition of like-minded parties forming an administration that can improve things (although support for the ANC is likely to fall dramatically).

The outlook for the city, barring radical change, is still bleak — no matter what Lesufi promises. DM