Plummeting services, rising discontent – Ramaphosa Cabinet confronts Gauteng’s woes

Billed as an oversight meeting, the President and his team will meet Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and the provincial executive committee members to assess their plans to arrest service delivery decline. The latest Gauteng Quality of Life Survey by the Gauteng City Region Observatory reveals that the largest longitudinal survey of life in the province shows people are not happy. 

While the smallest province with the largest population had notched up decent improvements in quality of life in the first two decades of democracy, Covid and poor governance have seen hardship descend. High migration to Gauteng from the rest of the country and continent stresses infrastructure and services.  

The latest quality of life measure released in 2024 shows that many people believe themselves to be living in a failed state. The ANC has put in place a task team to run its operations in the province because its political fortune will depend on what happens here.

Read more: More than half of Gauteng people say South Africa is a failed state: survey

The party garnered only 37% of the vote in this populous heartland province last year. Gauteng is run by a provincial unity government that differs from the Government of National Unity. Lesufi could not hammer out an agreement with the DA, which won 27.45% of the vote in last year’s election. The ANC has allied with the IFP, Rise Mzansi and the PA to form a government.   

Gauteng is an unusual province comprised mainly of the three metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, each of which is run by coalitions of the ANC, Action SA, EFF and Patriotic Alliance. Its governing structure is very different from the national picture.  

Gauteng government spokesperson Vuyo Mhaga says the 13 wicked problems in Gauteng outlined in Lesufi’s state of the province speech (see Nonkululeko Njilo’s report here) are all related to local government and were affected by chaotic coalition governments elected to serve between 2016 and 2021 and also from 2021 to 2024. He said this had been stabilised.

“What’s beautiful is there is monthly planning now. It’s all in sync and we are hopeful.”

Mhaga said that red tape was being cut and that the provincial and local spheres were working together.

The Cabinet has also held big meetings in Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape as part of the cycle of accountability checks.

These five charts from the latest quality of life survey show that on the basic metrics of a decent life, the province is in decline. The quality of water supply shows a steep decline from previous highs across the metros to levels of dissatisfaction not seen before.

Access to electricity is still high, but has declined by 10 percentage points from 2011. This is largely due to load shedding, but municipal grids are also in a critical condition.

In Johannesburg, for example, statistics show that 30% of traffic lights are out at any given time because of area outages. Electricity prices have also risen so much that vulnerable people in Gauteng are returning to candles and paraffin as energy sources.

If you are looking for a single reason to explain how ANC support in Gauteng hit an all-time low of 34% in the 2024 election, here it is. Electricity prices and power cuts cost the party the province.

Only 42% of people said they were satisfied with energy supply, a number almost in parallel with how the party’s fortunes waned. All the municipal grids in Gauteng remain in crisis with some of the smaller municipalities in even deeper crisis than the Johannesburg grid.

While Gauteng’s government of provincial unity is ideology-focused, the decline in sanitation services is a barometer of governance failures and shows these to be basic. Wastewater treatment and sewage reticulation are growing and festering sores across the province, especially in Merafong, Emfuleni and Mogale City, where the ANC performed poorly in the last elections. 

If you want a single snapshot of what’s ailing Gauteng, the chart below is it.  Gauteng is a largely urban province comprising three metros, district and local councils. The barometer of governance is not only the state of its schools and hospitals, but also roads, streetlights, municipal services, municipal bills and the extent to which people feel safe. Here you can see that things are not going well. Only 23% of those surveyed said they were satisfied with the safety and security provided by government.

Lesufi counts the Gauteng crime wardens and the work of the province’s highway patrol as a big plus, but the numbers tell a different story. Across the board, the survey shows the decline in roads (with a 37% satisfaction rate), street lights (39%), and the high cost of municipal services (22% – administered price increases and service levies eat at incomes in the province). 



Perspective: Do big imbizos work? There have been two Cabinet imbizos. In August 2023 and in March 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa led teams of ministers to the Eastern Cape (the Chris Hani District) and Mpumalanga (eMalahleni). 

South Africa loves pageantry, so the sight of big convoys of national, provincial and local leaders hitting town is performative politics. The imbizos are meant to open up communications between the Presidency and the people and they work to a set piece: local civil society, business and labour structures get a chance to tell him what’s happening and they give him an ear to the ground.

Ramaphosa has a popular touch, so he is good at these occasions. It’s part of the District Development Model meant to create seamless policymaking and execution across national, provincial and local government.  South Africa has 44 districts and eight metro governments – the local level is closest to people.

Each district is supposed to have a single development plan for jobs and the economy, infrastructure, housing and basic services, education and skills as well as health and social services. It’s a lovely idea, but in Gauteng it is an idea still to be born.

Take traffic lights, which Daily Maverick has investigated. Infrastructure like this is run by the city (Johannesburg) and the province (Gauteng). The worst intersections are run by the province, so when you try to get answers, the two spheres of government blame each other for the problems.

Until recently, it was the same with water and electricity (when Eskom and Johannesburg fought so hard they nearly turned the lights out at Christmas last year.

Read more: Eskom and City of Johannesburg R4.9 billion debt dispute risks dark December for residents

So, beyond performance, the system hasn’t worked in Gauteng. Ramaphosa’s team will have to ensure that after he leaves town on Friday after a two-day visit to the province and city, that his team keeps abreast of the plans and promises he will hear from the teams who present them. DM