A University of Pretoria researcher has said Johannesburg can only recover if its utilities get real power to run their own operations.
Ivor Chipkin, an associate lecturer at the university, made the case in a paper called The Crisis of Johannesburg: An Agenda for Institutional Reform. The Centre for Development and Enterprise, an independent think tank, commissioned the work.
He named City Power, Johannesburg Water and the waste service Pikitup as the bodies that “must get real operational autonomy”. He set out his argument in an article republished by Moneyweb from The Conversation.
Chipkin said South Africa’s largest city is struggling to provide clean water, electricity, safe streets and working roads. He listed weak financial controls, a growing wage bill, unstable coalitions and frequent changes of mayor as signs of the problem.
He said the usual view, that the crisis comes from poor governance and weak leaders, does not go far enough. In his view the deeper problem is legal and built into how municipalities work.
According to Chipkin, all power lies with the council. He said the city manager has no authority of their own to hire staff or make day to day decisions.
He said the iGoli 2002 plan turned the city’s big service functions into separate company style entities. The aim was to run them like technical businesses with skilled staff and firm money control.
Chipkin said the city never settled how these entities should relate to the main administration. Billing, treasury, staff appointments, buying and capital spending stayed tied to wider council politics. “The utilities were autonomous enough to fragment responsibility, but not autonomous enough to protect their own operations,” he wrote.
He said things got worse after 2016, when the ANC lost its majority on the city council. Coalition partners treated departments and entities as their own areas of influence, he said. In his view, this turned utilities into places of patronage and factional control.
Chipkin pointed to Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city, as an example. He said it was once known as the most violent city in the world. By 2013 it was recognised as the most innovative.
He said the city utility there, Empresas Públicas de Medellín, supplied electricity, water, sanitation and telecommunications. It earned money, kept up infrastructure and helped pay for investment in poorer areas, he said.
Chipkin warned that reform in Johannesburg will face resistance from people who gain from the current disorder. He said this could include court cases, leaks, labour disruption, sabotage of infrastructure and threats against officials.
He said the city will need both a professional administration and a policing plan to protect infrastructure, officials, contractors and communities. He added that this does not mean militarising local government.
Source: this article is based on reporting by Moneyweb. Image: Moneyweb. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Business desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Anelisa Nkuna covers business and money news for Tzaneen Voice. Anelisa reports on the rand, fuel prices, interest rates, jobs, Eskom, Transnet, farming and company results. The aim is simple: explain what the numbers mean for household budgets, small businesses and workers in South Africa.