The collapse of Johannesburg’s service delivery
Nearly 30 years into democracy, the city of gold’s residents face the harsh reality of a broken service delivery system.
Imagine living in a city that was once hailed as the economic titan of Africa but is now subject to the daily indignity of deteriorating infrastructure. Even after 30 years of democratic governance, persistent power cuts, erratic water supplies, roads riddled with potholes, and uncollected garbage have become unfortunate realities for many Johannesburg residents. The aspirational goals of equality, liberty and socioeconomic progress appear increasingly unattainable to some people.
For individuals like Maureen Ncube, this is the hard truth. “We are struggling, we do not have electricity,” Ncube says. “We are stranded in the informal settlements.” In Kanana Extension Four – an informal settlement located northeast of central Johannesburg in Rabie Ridge – Ncube, a mother of eight, lives in a humble home where poor service delivery makes it challenging for her to manage her daily tasks. Her home – built from discarded materials and sheets of corrugated iron – sits just a few feet away from a stream of sewage.
It’s a typical Saturday morning in the settlement, alive with the sounds and colours of township life. The scene is both vibrant and unsettling. Outside Ncube’s home, the stench of sewage is overpowering: a mix of decaying waste, stagnant water and rotting refuse, with dead rats occasionally floating by. The communal tap stands right next to the sewage, forcing residents to fetch water while the smell lingers heavily in the air. Children run around barefoot, oblivious to the health risks that lie in the murky water they splash through.
Residents are left in the dark on certain days when the electricity is totally cut off. In addition, they must frequently go without water on days when the supply runs out due to leaking communal taps. Like millions of other Jo’burg residents, Ncube and her children rely on these basic services to survive. With every dry tap, power outage and pile of uncollected garbage, she is reminded of just how much Johannesburg’s service delivery has failed its people.
Numerous locals such as Ncube face a daily dilemma: either deal with water scarcity or spend money on expensive private water supplies. Their physical health is negatively affected by the unreliability of critical services, and their everyday lives are overshadowed by the emotional toll of living in uncertainty. As they negotiate a system that has repeatedly let them down, families are left anxious by the constant fear of upcoming power outages or water problems.
The establishment of municipal state-owned entities
The Municipal Systems Act gave rise to organisations like City Power and Johannesburg Water in the early 2000s. Section 73(1)(c) of the Act emphasises that municipalities must ensure “universal access to essential services that are affordable to all” and move progressively toward “the provision of basic services to all our people, specifically the poor and disadvantaged”. The Act saw Johannesburg Water and City Power as essential providers of reliable and reasonably priced services that supported the constitutional goal of fostering equitable development.
City Power and Johannesburg Water were expected to adhere to the Act’s mandates for financial sustainability and community engagement. Section 73(2)(b) requires that municipalities provide services “in a financially and environmentally sustainable manner”. Despite their mandates to offer affordable services, City Power and Johannesburg Water have encountered both financial and operational challenges. Mismanagement and rising expenses have made it more difficult for these organisations to achieve their initial objectives.
What went wrong?
City Power and Johannesburg Water were established to improve service delivery in Johannesburg; however, they have not met their objectives. The Municipal Systems Act, section 95(c), mandates municipalities to maintain sound financial management to ensure sustainable services. However, these state-owned entities have been embroiled in corruption and mismanagement.
An August City Press article reported that auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke’s 2022-23 report raised significant concerns about financial mismanagement in the City of Johannesburg. The City retained its previous year’s unqualified audit opinion with findings, yet issues of poor financial management persisted, according to City Press. In addition, a July Mail & Guardian report highlighted allegations that City Power and Pikitup have been heavily tainted by corruption and political interference. Prominent ANC leaders are accused of compromising public services by capturing the city-owned companies for their own benefit. Investigations into the entities are under way for anomalies in tenders that led to poor service delivery. Patronage networks have allegedly been strengthened by these actions, which are believed to have enriched certain politicians at the expense of taxpayers and the construction of vital infrastructure.
Section 73(2)(c) of the Municipal Systems Act requires services to be financially and environmentally sustainable, but the deteriorating infrastructure suggests otherwise. For instance, Coronationville has faced weeks without water, leading to protests as frustrated residents demand their basic rights. A recent Daily Maverick report found that Coronationville depends on the Hursthill 1 Reservoir, which is facing severe operational challenges and structural decay, resulting in major water losses. Similar issues plague Kanana, where residents endure recurring blackouts and broken water-supply systems, despite the initial goal outlined by these state-owned entities to provide equitable service delivery. The common thread for these failures is a lack of transparency and accountability.
Political analyst Ebrahim Harvey argues that service-delivery issues in Johannesburg stem from external pressures placed on local leadership. According to Harvey, the World Bank played a role in pushing ANC councillors and officials toward restructuring municipal services in the early ’90s. He adds, “The World Bank is the place that put pressure on the ANC councilors and leadership to go the route to collapse all the services in the municipalities.” The foundation for future initiatives and economic changes in South Africa was established by the World Bank as early as the 1990s. To prepare South African officials for the Bank’s possible participation in local projects, should an interim government request this, the Bank held policy seminars and capacity-building workshops, as well as conducting informal economic research.
The consequences for Johannesburg residents
Two Kanana residents, Moitheri Tau and Tembi Elizabeth Mokwele, publicly voice their dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the city’s inadequate services.
Tau, who has lived in the area since 1993, describes a daily struggle for electricity and safety. She explains that residents connect power cables to a nearby transformer. “We don’t have electricity and the service delivery is poor. We connected ourselves illegally after City Power disconnected us,” she admits, pointing out the dangers of living without basic services. “Our children use candlelight to study, but when they fall asleep, the candles set the shacks on fire. One burning shack can cause 14 more to catch fire,” she says.
Mokwele emphasises the unsanitary conditions in which they live. “There’s dirty water everywhere and it makes our children sick,” she says, sitting outside her home. She is enjoying a lively conversation with her neighbors, laughing and cracking jokes, despite the dire situation. Mokwele speaks of her frustration with the government’s repeated promises during election cycles, only for these promises to be forgotten afterwards. “We vote and every time they promise us better living conditions, but nothing happens,” she says.
Both Tau and Mokwele, like many other residents, are desperate for change, pleading for electricity, RDP housing and basic services to ensure their safety and dignity.
The frustration with Johannesburg Water and City Power is not limited to informal settlements, but extends across the city. On Johannesburg Water’s X page, complaints are rampant. One resident expressed outrage after being left without water for days, saying, “We have no water for two days! You just shut off the water without any plan. It’s ridiculous and unacceptable.” Another user echoed this sentiment, frustrated by the repeated failures: “You clearly don’t serve Jo’burg… Why is it taking so long? Why can you never get it fixed correctly the first time?”
The alarming decay of Johannesburg’s water infrastructure is driving the city toward a potential ‘Day Zero’. This raises serious concerns about management and upkeep. In June News24 reported that Rand Water’s maintenance problems make it difficult for Johannesburg Water to satisfy demand, which leads to frequent supply interruptions. The prolonged timescale for these upgrades raises concerns, even while efforts are being made to enhance and modernise water infrastructure to mitigate these problems. Why has it taken so long to fix and improve vital water infrastructure that millions of people depend on every day after more than 30 years of democracy?
Similarly, the City Power X page is filled with complaints from residents affected by constant power outages. One exasperated user shared their frustration, saying, “Every week it’s the same story… whenever Kanana has no power, we are also affected – this is ridiculous! Matriculants are writing exams, how are they supposed to study?” Another commenter highlighted the effect on their livelihood: “Getting fired for always making the same electricity excuse. Working from home is a nightmare.” These posts reflect the widespread discontent across Johannesburg, as both water and electricity services fail to meet residents’ most basic needs.
Rising frustration and economic effects
In vulnerable communities like Kanana, the breakdown of service delivery in Johannesburg has aggravated socioeconomic disparities. Dr Morné Oosthuizen, chief research officer at the Development Policy Research Unit of the University of Cape Town, explains that whereas wealthier households can adapt by installing solar panels or purchasing bottled water, poorer households are left with no such alternatives. “Poor households are much more constrained than better-off households in their ability to insulate themselves from poor service delivery,” Oosthuizen notes. This inability to access basic services not only deepens inequality, but also compromises efforts to reduce multidimensional poverty. As Oosthuizen puts it: “Basic services typically serve to reduce inequalities – if you look at multidimensional poverty [and] inequality measures, which include these kinds of services, you will see relatively low rates of multidimensional poverty and lower inequality levels.”
The collapse of infrastructure also raises operating costs for businesses. Oosthuizen says, “There is real potential for this phenomenon to raise costs for employers – for example, they need to install solar panels, or they need to repair vehicles more frequently because of higher wear and tear – putting pressure on their ability to remain competitive.” This added burden weakens local economies, further limiting employment opportunities and driving up costs for businesses already struggling to cope with unreliable services.
In the long term, Johannesburg’s infrastructure problems are discouraging business investment and pushing skilled labour out of the city. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry business confidence index for July 2024 reflects this sentiment, showing only a marginal improvement of 1.8 index points from the previous year – a gain too modest to counteract the ongoing concerns about local infrastructure and utility reliability. Oosthuizen emphasises that service-delivery failures can serve as a “push factor”, driving businesses to relocate. “Where businesses do not need to be located in Johannesburg, poor service delivery encourages businesses to relocate elsewhere,” he says. This potential exodus of both businesses and workers threatens to further erode Johannesburg’s economic stability, affecting not only established companies, but also informal businesses reliant on formal-sector earnings. Oosthuizen says, “This can undermine local economies, also through the impact of a weakened formal sector (and earnings from the formal sector) on the informal sector.”
Ncube and other Johannesburg residents deserve better. The city’s inability to supply basic utilities like safe power and clean water is a catastrophe that has to be addressed immediately. It’s time to invest in this city’s future and end the cycle of neglect.
FEATURED IMAGE: A visual representation of a dripping communial tap in Kanana. Photo: Rivaldo Jantjies.
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