Collective Governance Failure – National Government Must Intervene

Executive Cannot Escape Responsibility for Joburg's Collapse

Johannesburg has reached the point of governance failure, according to the Joburg Crisis Alliance. The Alliance argues that the adoption of an unfunded budget, combined with the City's inability to fund essential services such as road maintenance, demonstrates that the crisis has moved beyond financial distress. It is calling on national government to intervene urgently, place grant funding under direct oversight, protect essential services and ensure those responsible for the City's financial collapse are held accountable.

The Joburg Crisis Alliance is warning that Johannesburg has moved beyond financial distress into a full-scale governance crisis requiring urgent national intervention.

The Alliance argues that National Treasury's reported intention to withhold funding, following the City's adoption of an unfunded budget, together with the Johannesburg Roads Agency's admission that it had grounded its fleet because it could not afford fuel, confirms that the City's financial collapse is now directly affecting service delivery.

The Alliance has repeatedly cautioned over the past year that the City's budgets were based on unrealistic assumptions, revenue was overstated, expenditure understated, and political leaders failed to confront the worsening financial position. It contends that these warnings have now been validated by National Treasury and that every member of the City's Mayoral Committee shares collective responsibility for the crisis.

While acknowledging that suspending national funding could negatively affect residents, the Alliance argues that continued unconditional financial support is equally unsustainable. It therefore calls on the President, National Treasury, the Minister of Cooperative Governance and the Gauteng Provincial Government to implement extraordinary measures, including constitutional intervention, direct national oversight of grant funding, ring-fencing of money for essential services, a comprehensive financial recovery programme and personal accountability for those responsible for the City's decline.

Johannesburg's deterioration has become a national economic threat and insists that the Executive Mayor and the Mayoral Committee must publicly demonstrate why National Treasury should continue transferring billions of rand to a municipality that has ignored repeated financial warnings and can no longer guarantee the delivery of essential services.