A decade ago, Johannesburg—the economic heartland of South Africa—was riding high. Its then Mayor, Parks Tau, was one of the most visible city leaders globally, driving an ambitious policy reform agenda under the the widely popular “Corridors of Freedom” banner, a public transport intervention designed to stimulate investment in affordable housing, green public spaces, and economic revitalisation. 

Fast forward to 2024 and things could not be more different. Daily news reports have become a persistent inventory of events and stories that reveal an unmitigated collapse that has left many residents gloomy about the city’s future. Many neighbourhoods have had no running water for weeks; defective traffic lights are an everyday feature across the city, as are piles of putrid, uncollected garbage in poorer areas. Large-scale slumification of inner-city high-rise buildings continues while violent and petty crime are reportedly on the rise. The story of what produced this downward spiral is well documented.

In 2018, newly elected President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a “judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of state capture, corruption and fraud in the public sector and organs of state”. It became popularly known as the Zondo Commission after the judge who presided over the enquiry. The Commission’s findings confirmed what everyone already knew. Ramaphosa’s predecessor and former boss, President Jacob Zuma, during his two terms in power from 2009-18, executed a large-scale and systematic raid of the country’s most critical state-run entities. Under his leadership, the procurement budgets of these parastatals were “captured”, as it came to be known, by awarding lucrative contracts to a close circle of friends, family and political allies of the then-president. Some of the proceeds were used to secure support and compliance from the various factions of his party, the African National Congress (ANC). According to the Auditor General’s 2022/23 annual report, the impacts of the Zuma heist reached municipalities across South Africa. Only 29% of the country’s 257 municipalities are able to achieve clean audits.

In Gauteng, Johannesburg’s home province in which the ANC has been in power since 1994, the party has split into multiple factions as supporters of ex-President Zuma, those of his predecessor, ex-President Thabo Mbeki, and later his vice president and successor Cyril Ramaphosa battled for control. The divisions, which occasionally result in violent conflict between the factions, remain a critical problem within the party at all levels countrywide. Gauteng has been ground zero for these splits, which have left the ANC a shell of its former self.

The ANC has paid a heavy price. Once enjoying a clear electoral majority, support for the party has dwindled substantially, and since 2016, it has been forced to enter into often volatile coalition governments with opposition parties in most of the country’s eight metros. In a country where coalition governments are uncommon, chronic political and managerial dysfunction in city governments run by coalitions stitched together for expedience have become commonplace. Occupying an outsize role in the country’s economic and political life, Johannesburg has become the apex example of this trend too.

The combination of factional stalemates within the ANC combined with an ever-changing roster of dysfunctional governing coalitions have created ideal conditions for a governance vacuum in Johannesburg. Critical fiscal and policy decisions are simply not being made as priorities keep shifting. The many instances of infrastructure collapse that now define life across the city can be traced back to the lack of maintenance, repair, woefully inadequate capital investment, and absence of coherent planning since the 2016 local government elections. 

Since 2016, Johannesburg has had two elections and seven Mayors. Typically, when a new Mayor has come in, members of the executive that serve on the outgoing mayor’s Mayoral Committee who lead sectoral departments, also leave office. The constant turnover of politicians and senior managers has induced instability across all key functions of the city. This has contributed to the lack of decisive response to infrastructural failure. Through all the political manoeuvring, none of the political parties have offered a strategic, evidence-based managerial perspective on how to dig Johannesburg out of its hole. 

Can anything be done to turn this decline around? 

I do not know the answer to this pressing question, but it’s clear that a political sphere dominated by unstable and super-expedient coalition governments is not the answer. 

We must look elsewhere and cultivate powerful extra-government voices to not only demand and advocate for stability and professionalisation of the city’s political governance, but to also imagine alternative and pioneering partnership-based interventions to respond to the multi-dimensional crises that Johannesburg, like many cities across the global South, are facing. Job creation for the masses of unemployed or under-employed young people, and interventions to improve safety and quality of life in the most deprived, often violent neighbourhoods across the city must be priorities. Creating denser neighbourhoods and better connecting different types of land uses, such as housing, businesses, and public spaces will make the city not only more efficient but more livable. Such approaches can help with making Johannesburg a more cohesive city by bringing together different cultural communities and economic activity in a way that reflects and supports local culture. Working closely with educational and religious institutions, which often play an important role in communities across the city will be essential.

In the midst of the cascading climate, biodiversity, land-use, economic and inequality crisis that Johannesburg is faced with, the appropriate intervention must be a transitional pathway to refashion the city region’s economy towards green industrialisation, and an inclusive knowledge economy aimed at solving the big built-environment challenges that plague the city. The crisis can be an opportunity to build the scaffolding for a more inclusive, sustainable and socially just regional economy. Change can start from outside the state with an eye on creating a new accountability framework for the political sphere that can, over time, mature what is currently a juvenile landscape. 

South Africa has some precedence for this approach. Since June 2023 a coalition of formal large businesses in South Africa have partnered with the Presidency in an attempt to tackle some of the most urgent and complex service delivery problems facing the country. Through this partnership, the private sector has contributed R170 million (US$7 million) in direct support, backed up with 250 technical experts working alongside public sector officials to problem-solve and plan ahead.
More than 130 CEOs have signed up to support this intervention. In less than a year considerable progress has been logged in improving electricity supply challenges, as well as laying the groundwork to turn-around the country’s declining freight, rail and port infrastructure. The collaboration is also focused on building an effective data management capacity in government and to strengthen intelligence in the fight against crime and corruption. 

But, these are obviously not systemic solutions, not least due to the lack of broader civic engagement and lack of transparency. Nevertheless, the progress made so far by the partnership underscores that external pressure organised around strong ideas about how to do things differently, and standing up new institutional capabilities to problem-solve and innovate, can make a material difference in a relatively short time. 

Good government, effective urban planning and regulation often boil down to confidence in leadership and a willingness to work together towards a shared goal. A big part of the leadership imperative is to fashion a shared societal narrative about how the city can achieve its potential to creatively problem-solve. Such a social narrative is a precondition to harness cross-sectoral and cross-institutional partnership to solve difficult problems. Johannesburg can be a perfect laboratory for this kind of non-governmental institutional renewal to create the ground for the re-emergence of effective urban governance and leadership.