Make-or-break moment for Johannesburg

Helen Zille believes that this is a make-or-break election for Johannesburg voters and is determined to either get the DA enough votes to lead the council or take the opposition benches.

What she is clear about is that should the party not get a majority, the DA will only consider a small number of coalition partners rather than get involved in a “chaotic coalition”.

“This is Joburg’s last chance election and the people of Joburg must decide whether the city is worth saving or not.”

“I would not be here if it were not worth saving. I’ve put my whole life into this place.”

Zille has been campaigning in the city since September last year, and by her own account the party, and her as candidate, have pushed hard every single day of the year.

This is the election that is going to make or break Joburg. This is Joburg’s last chance election and the people of Joburg must decide whether the city is worth saving or not.

Zille’s campaign stunts drew the ire of mayor Dada Morero several times as she focused on service delivery failures, the state of the city’s roads and shortcomings of the council.

She told the story of a woman in Alex who sells chicken feet and gizzards but had no water at her home for 24 years. “This woman is running a restaurant business and she needs water. No water comes out of her tap, and she needs to get it from neighbours or buy it.

“I got Johannesburg Water out and they dug up something and discovered that the valve had not been opened. For 24 years the valve was turned off. One turn of the valve gave her water. She had reported it to her councillor, but nothing happened. She was so impressed I fixed it, she kept saying ‘in one day’. It’s so tragic to see this happen.”

She said the “massive liquidity crisis” in the city means there is no money to render services.

Six-month financial turnaround plan

Zille believes the city’s dire financial situation can be turned around.

“Yes it can be done, but this is the last time it can be done.”

“Joburg still has a very large revenue base, but it has been so badly mismanaged in the allocation of resources and there has been so much corruption, that it has been squandered,” she said.

“So, we have a very good financial turnaround strategy and it’s implementable if we are determined to implement it. That’s obviously got to come first, we can’t do anything without money.”

“We have to stabilise the personnel and get the right people in the right places and then it’s going to be crucial to start on the most important service delivery issues which are water, electricity and roads, and of course refuse removal.”

The turnaround strategy, said Zille, is a six-month plan.

“If we can be very disciplined and turn it around, we will make big progress. When I was studying the figures for Joburg it really struck me that if you add the non-revenue water and electricity cost, together with unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, you hit 25% of the budget. It’s huge. If we just fix that we make an enormous difference,” said Zille.

Currently the city loses almost 50% of the water it buys from Rand Water, and electricity losses are almost 30%. In the 2024/25 financial year alone, the city recorded R3.69 billion in irregular expenditure, R2.38 billion in unauthorised expenditure, and R943 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

She said: “I am not going to pretend it’s going to be easy to fix, but we have a plan. I can get real expertise into my office as mayor. There is a plan to ensure we hit the ground running and at least implement our financial turnaround strategy very quickly. We have to put together an adjustment budget and then implement our anti-corruption architecture which we also planned very carefully”.

The first order of business for her as mayor would be to discuss the financial turnaround strategy with the National Treasury, the city’s chief financial officer and “crucially with Operation Vulindlela.”

“We will have to set up some very tight public-private partnerships in order to deal with the trading services as quickly as we can; ringfence the finances (which has already started with Johannesburg Water) and we will find a way of getting our strategy locked and loaded and then move on to deal with corruption,” she said.

She is also worried about the targeting and assassination of whistleblowers.

“We will have to do all we possibly can to protect our whistleblowers.”

Zille believes that voters have a choice between the status quo and the future they want to build for themselves.

“Vote for yourself. Think about the state of the city, think of the kind of city you want to live in in 10 years, then decide which party has the track record, the policies, the depth of leadership, the experience, to take Joburg there. And vote for that party,” she said.

No nine-party coalition

Over the past five years, Johannesburg has been run by different coalition partners, all of which have proven to be difficult to manage.

Zille is not interested in having a nine-party coalition, because “someone will always pull in a different direction”.

With 82 parties and independents confirmed by the IEC as contesting the elections in Johannesburg, Zille is adamant that if the DA does not get an outright majority or a workable coalition, she will take the DA into the opposition. The latest election polls place the DA ahead of the ANC but not enough to win the council outright. The option then for the DA is to find an ideal coalition partner.

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“To get Johannesburg working again will take at least 10 years. But in five years we can make big changes. I am being very realistic; I know what it takes to turn a city around. We can make big progress if we don’t have unstable coalitions. And if there is a coalition it needs to be with the smallest number of partners possible. I am not doing a nine-party coalition, been there, done that and it is ungovernable. We will go into the opposition if that happens,” she said.

Substance abuse crisis

Besides turning around the financial fortunes of Johannesburg, Zille said she is equally concerned about the prevalence of substance abuse and its impact on society.

“The extent of substance abuse is the number one issue we have to deal with; no one knows how big it really is. It’s a vicious circle and many kids are growing up in homes where substance abuse is rife.

“When I go to old age homes, I find many grannies living with their grandchildren. Their own children are so high on drugs they can’t leave their grandchildren with them,” she said.

“The worst thing ever is knocking on doors of drug addicts and seeing the condition of their children. That is the worst thing ever,” she said.

• This interview is part of an ongoing series by Our City News featuring key mayoral candidates contesting the City of Johannesburg in the upcoming local government elections. Our City News is a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg. 

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