Governance in Johannesburg has been hollowed out. The city will not be fixed unless its next government puts capable people in charge of the institutions responsible for running it.

The city’s management crisis is severe. Since 2016, when a single party last had a majority in council, Johannesburg has had nine mayors and eight coalition administrations. Each has brought its own priorities, disrupted long-term planning and reshuffled the senior positions that require continuity and expertise to function. No mayor has completed a full five-year term. In this context cadre deployment and political interference deepened.

At the top of municipal entities, political allegiance has repeatedly taken precedence over skills and experience. Not one of the members of the Johannesburg Water board is a professionally qualified engineer, a shocking state of affairs for a utility facing an infrastructure renewal backlog of more than R26.6bn. At least seven of the city’s 24 most senior management positions are currently occupied by acting appointees. Johannesburg’s own annual reports document persistent vacancies among engineers, finance professionals, ICT specialists, project managers and supply-chain experts.

These are the consequences of a system in which appointments have been treated as political currency. Board positions are awarded to coalition partners. Executives rotate with every political transition. Technical expertise is replaced by political loyalty. As a result, the city cannot keep its lights on, maintain its roads, collect refuse reliably or manage its finances.

A new administration should focus its initial energy on three priorities.

The first is the city manager. This is the most consequential appointment the incoming mayor will make. Johannesburg after the local government elections in November needs an executive with demonstrated capacity to manage turnaround processes at scale, strong financial management skills, technical familiarity with large infrastructure organisations, and the personal standing and conviction to resist corruption and inappropriate political pressure.

The appointment must be made through a process that is visibly independent of coalition deal-making, with publicly stated criteria, disclosed shortlists, and declared conflicts of interest.

The second priority is the utility boards. Before filling board vacancies at City Power, Johannesburg Water and Pikitup (the entities delivering the most vital services), a new administration must appoint the board chair of each entity. The chair sets the governance culture, leads the recruitment of other directors, and is the primary line of accountability between the utility and the shareholder. The current chairs of these entities, and of the Johannesburg Development Agency, are all active or former members of political party structures. That must change.

Board members should be appointed on three-year contracts, replacing the annual renewals that have made boards permanently vulnerable to political interference. Once the right chair and board are in place they must make sure the best possible CEO is leading the entity. That CEO must then be held accountable for building a capable executive team and restoring the utility’s ability to deliver.

The third priority is the wider administration. Immediately on taking office the new government must identify the city’s mission-critical positions and conduct an audit of who occupies them. Where senior officials cannot perform in the manner and at the level required, the city should use mechanisms available under existing employment law to address the problem fairly but quickly. Numerous vacancies in critical positions — engineering, finance, ICT, procurement expertise — should be filled urgently.

Finding the right people for critical positions will take time. Where infrastructure is at immediate risk, or where the city urgently needs to understand its true financial position, a new administration should look at innovative, speedy interventions. Some examples:

• a team of private-sector fiscal experts could be brought in on an interim basis to prepare the June 2027 budget;
• an urgent solution to broken pipes and wasted water could be devised with private capacity and the national department; and
• a team of experienced electricity distribution engineers could be contracted for a fixed period to work alongside City Power.

A reforming administration will need a strategy to deal with pushback. Officials whose positions are threatened will litigate. Coalition partners will apply pressure. Corrupt interests benefiting from dysfunction will not go quietly.

Johannesburg needs stable, competent, honest and bold leadership with a mandate to kick-start delivery through bold reforms. Voters should think hard as to how they vote and if that will help fix the city.

Bernstein is executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE). This article is based on ‘Kickstarting Delivery – Joburg’s Mission Critical Jobs’, the third report in Johannesburg Matters: Fixing South Africa’s Growth Engine, a new CDE series

This article was published on Sunday Times