This speech was delivered by Mayor Herman Mashaba at today’s press conference on the state of Johannesburg’s Infrastructure, held at the City Council Chambers.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On the 23rd of August 2016, my administration walked into the Office in the City of Johannesburg. We had an idea of the challenges that confronted our City, but the truth is that what we encountered was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
One of our earliest challenges, and one we still grapple with today, is the blatant act of sabotage from some senior officials working against the new administration and at the expense of residents.But this cannot compare to the challenge created by past administrations. Our predecessors spent a great deal of time, effort, and money fooling themselves and our residents about the state of our City.
They spent hundreds of millions of Rand promoting an artificial image of the City that not even their strongest supporters actually believed. R153 million spent in two years on self-promotional advertising, R193 million spent in three years on travel. They claimed Johannesburg as a World Class City, which couldn’t have been further from the lived reality of the majority of our residents.
But we are not here today to apportion blame. Those days are over. Our role is an unconditional responsibility, a contract with our residents, to turn this City around and get it working.
But, when you consider some of our biggest challenges, we must appreciate that they cannot be resolved overnight. We have to take the residents into our confidence and explain the true state of our City. Every day our residents suffer from these challenges, but they have never known why they are so many.
They have never known how these experiences relate to government failure, or of any real plans to address them. Never before has there been an appreciation of how fraud and corruption has robbed the poorest in our City of the dignity that comes from basic services.
Just think of the more than 2000 cases totalling over R16 Billion under investigation, and think of how our poor communities could have been serviced with that money. From day one in this job, I committed this government to being open and transparent with our residents, because, we are in this together.
On 3 August 2016 a social contract was formed – one that requires a change in the way the government of Johannesburg works. Today we are here to discuss the City’s Infrastructure network. Infrastructure is not an issue that appeals to people. But, when it fails – when the lights go out, the water stops running, and the roads crumble, THEN people pay attention.
We have one electricity sub-station that supplies the entire Inner City of Johannesburg. It is 75 years old, 30 years past its useful lifespan. It is old enough to have served some of your great-grandparents. No service parts are available for this sub-station any longer – they stopped making those parts 20 years ago.
The thought should leave you cold.
The truth is that much of our infrastructure was built in the dark days of Apartheid, designed to exclusively serve small white communities. To make matters worse, our City Entities have been hit by institutionalised corruption and crime.
Earlier this year I shared how City Power had been robbed blind by a company who had been paid massive sums of money even though there was no real work on the ground to build sub-stations in Hopefield and Eldorado Park.
Like so many other cases, officials in these entities colluded with corrupt companies to sabotage these communities and projects for their own financial gain. To make matters worse, we are also fighting against criminals who steal crucial infrastructure from our entities. Just over a month ago, the inner city was plunged into days of darkness due to stolen underground cables.
Last week, we recovered vandalised and stolen City Power equipment and infrastructure worth R80 million. The challenges are substantial. Today, we live in a society where our communities are growing and diversifying, but the capacity of the City’s infrastructure cannot match this growth or the changing needs of these communities.
In many ways, today is not dissimilar to that day when Members of Parliament warned that ESKOM was heading towards the metaphorical cliff in its supply of power. Four years later, the lights started to go out.
As you are no doubt aware, we in the City of Johannesburg, now face a very similar issue. Can you imagine that 27% of our electricity infrastructure is past its life span?
Can you imagine that we have had to accept over 45 000 leaks in our water pipes in our City?
Can you imagine that our road network is deteriorating because the R1 billion budget of JRA is inadequate to even just maintain the condition of our roads, let alone improve it?
The question is: are we going to drift towards that cliff while we fool ourselves and our residents?
The answer is: Not under my watch, not as long as I occupy this seat.
Because when we promised change in our social contract with our residents, it was not small change that was promised.
It was REAL change, COMPLETE change. In Sesotho, there is a word that captures this better than English does “Phetogo.” As we approach the planning for the next budget cycle I will be making sure that one of our “Diphetogo” has to be massive investment in City Infrastructure.