RECLAIMING THE COMMONS: Fixing Joburg starts with turning it into a municipality once more

We all agree that Johannesburg is in a mess – that the current “leadership”, political and managerial, are destroying this city. Most of us think these “leaders” are a bunch of incompetent crooks, but what can we do about it?

In this election season, every politician is promising to “fix it all” if we vote for them. However, we need to decide what the roots of the problems are so that we can vote for someone who may be able to fix them. Once we know what needs to be fixed, we can decide who among all the contenders may actually have the ability to fix those things.

We also need to make sure that those we may want to vote for agree with us about what needs to be fixed. It’s no good putting someone in power with lots of abilities if they think the problems reside elsewhere.

So let’s examine what the roots of the problems in Johannesburg are. Part of the problem is that most of the services we need from the City of Joburg are not being delivered directly by people who work for its departments. About 25 years ago, those in charge decided to corporatise most of the City’s services and created what are now 13 (or 14, depending on how you count them) municipal entities (or utilities) that are responsible for delivering the various local services to the residents of the city.

We get electricity from a corporatised entity (owned by the city) called City Power. We get water from Joburg Water, garbage removal from PikitUp, and so on.

In each case, the corporatised entity has a highly paid board in charge of its (even more highly paid) management. The shareholder in each case is still the City, but the control of these services is exercised through many layers of highly paid intermediaries.

So, our first job in evaluating the root problems of our city is to decide whether this corporatised model is the best way to fulfil the City’s constitutional mandate to provide a range of critical services to the people of Joburg. Is the best approach to deliver such services via in-house administration of the people providing the services, or to do it (as Joburg has done) via the creation of corporatised, semi-autonomous entities that provide services on behalf of the City?

This is not just a matter of administrative preference; it involves some fundamental choices about democratic accountability and fiscal sustainability. As the primary interface between the state and the citizen, the municipal structure determines whether public resources are being used for the collective good or wasted within fragmented bureaucratic silos.

Joburg’s multi-entity model

The underlying reality remains that no political leadership can succeed within the current corporatised model. This structure, originally intended to mirror private sector efficiency through semi-autonomous municipal-owned entities, has instead become a fragmented silo system defined by institutional capture and duplicated, excessive overheads.

The model has not only failed to deliver efficiency, but directly facilitated a collapse in service standards, beginning with systemic failures in the City’s utility engines.

Johannesburg’s administrative bloating is unparalleled. Compared with its 13 separate municipal entities, Cape Town has only one and Tshwane and eThekwini two each. This fragmented structure creates an excessive bureaucracy that aggressively stifles service delivery speed.

By insulating entity leadership behind the Companies Act, the model dilutes the democratic accountability essential for urban governance. This structural redundancy does not merely complicate reporting; it actively diverts billions from the “commons” into an unsustainable executive layer.

Utility management is the primary revenue driver for the City, yet the corporatised model has presided over a period of profound technical and operational decay. These losses are no longer mere inefficiencies; they represent a total failure of the “arm’s-length” governance model. Technical and non-technical losses represent a strategic risk of insolvency, as bulk purchases are not converted into the revenue required to sustain the fiscus.

For example, Johannesburg Water is facing a catastrophe, losing almost half the water it buys from Rand Water. Current data shows that 44.8% to 46.2% of bulk supply is lost through physical leaks, theft and billing failures, costing the city R2.8-billion annually. These failures demonstrate that semi-autonomy has shielded management from accountability for technical decay.

These operational failures are particularly bad when contrasted with the rapid growth of executive compensation for the leadership tasked with preventing them. While the infrastructure crumbles (omnipresent potholes, failing bridges, substations that keep bursting into flames and mains water pipes that explode), senior pay has reached phenomenal heights. It reveals a system where “political capitalists” use corporatised silos to bypass the fiscal discipline required of the core administration.

The strategic necessity of accountability mechanisms has been subverted by a culture of impunity. The failure of disciplinary oversight is not accidental, but a result of functional paralysis that has catastrophic consequences. Disciplinary cases frequently exceed 18 months, enabling officials to evade accountability.

Planning and financial failures

Integrated data is the lifeblood of municipal viability. The Auditor-General has correctly identified “siloed operational datasets” as a primary risk. Because municipal-owned entities operate as semi-autonomous fiefdoms, the city lacks a unified “truth” for infrastructure planning.

This is evidenced by the R50-billion-plus discrepancy in infrastructure reporting: mayor Dada Morero officially acknowledges a R220-billion citywide backlog, while the Johannesburg Roads Agency’s internal datasets reflect a reality exceeding R270-billion. Without a single, integrated dataset, the City cannot allocate capital effectively.

Joburg also faces a severe risk of municipal insolvency. The “red status” of utility debt and the depletion of cash reserves threaten the City’s ability to maintain basic functions (water, waste and energy).

The section 216(2) intervention by National Treasury in July is the final proof that the city is no longer a “going concern”. The budget is unfunded and the liquidity to cover only three days of operations is a harbinger of systemic collapse.

“Reclaiming the commons” through the reintegration of the 13 entities into a single core administration under the city manager is the only pathway to fiscal recovery.

By removing the middle-management ­layer of boards, the City can eliminate the extra layers of complexity and high fees paid to consultants that characterise the privatised model. It can also eliminate the duplication of CEO and board salaries.

Reintegration would eliminate the duplicate leadership overhead draining the fiscus. More importantly, it would restore direct accountability, moving away from a model that prioritises profit-seeking political capitalists over the public good.

The evidence dictates an immediate mandate for “re-municipalisation”.

The experiment with corporatised silos has failed, resulting in a city that is financially bankrupt and operationally paralysed.

Core policy recommendations

1. Immediate dissolution of municipal-owned entities’ board structures: Consolidate the 13 entities into the core administration and restore the city manager’s direct authority.

2. Standardisation of senior executive pay: Mandate that all municipal salaries strictly adhere to ordinary civil service limits, ending the era of utility heads who earn R4.9-million annually – more than President Cyril Ramaphosa or directors-general at national level.

3. Data integration: Force the consolidation of all the entity datasets into a single planning office to resolve discrepancies like the reporting discrepancy noted above.

In conclusion, the City of Johannesburg must pivot away from elite enrichment. The transition must be towards a merit-based, service-oriented administration. Re-municipalisation is not merely a structural adjustment; it is a necessary rebellion against a system that has allowed patronage to supersede the constitutional rights of seven million residents.

To save Joburg, we must first reclaim control of the City’s employees. Subcontractors proliferate throughout the city – why are its employees not doing the work?

Corruption is endemic throughout every large project and we need to understand why and how. BEE has been accused of being the cause of most of the corruption, and also of being at the root of the appointment of friends and collaborators to head everything – people who don’t have the skills to do the work.

How does this relate to the undeniable need to harness the skills and abilities of the bulk of our people in Joburg? DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R39. The e-edition of Daily Maverick’s weekly newspaper, DM168, is now free for readers who are signed into their Daily Maverick account. Click on the cover of the newspaper below to access the e-edition.