Shirley de Villiers: Joburg's last rites

Johannesburg's mayor Dada Morero delivered his State of the City address from a cathedral this week — complete with a marching band and a reading of the Lord's Prayer. But behind the pageantry, South Africa's biggest city is staring down billions in debt, a crumbling water network, and a power utility threatening to pull the plug. In this interview with Irakli, Currency Senior Reporter Shirley de Villiers picks apart Morero's claims of a fully funded budget and targets met, warning that "it fell apart out of the gates" — from misleading Cape Town comparisons to a city "owed 25 billion by debtors" but with "only 4 billion cash on hand". On Eskom's threat to cut power over a R5.2bn debt, de Villiers is blunt: "Joburg doesn't have the money...I presume it would be rotational power cuts and essentially residents being left in the dark when they have paid for their services." And Joburg, she warns, is no outlier — "116 of them have unfunded budgets, 162 of them are in financial distress...It's the result of poor leadership, poor governance, patronage politics, corruption and ineptitude." With local government elections looming in November, this is almost certainly Morero's last State of the City address — and quite possibly the ANC's last chance to convince residents it can still govern the country's economic heartland. On current evidence, the residents can but pray.