Is Dada Morero about to be Joburg’s worst-ever mayor?

He told residents point-blank not to expect any ‘major improvements’ in the next two years.

It is difficult to imagine a more chaotic and underwhelming start as mayor of Johannesburg than that of Dada Morero’s second term. He was inaugurated in August and immediately held a frank interview with News24 in which he told residents point-blank not to expect any “major improvements” in the next two years.

His term runs until the next local government elections in 2026.

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He said: “Remember, we won’t be able to do everything in the next two years. We only have a limited time, but if we are able to put systems in place, [Morero’s successor can] implement [changes].”

Read: Johannesburg has a new mayor and the same old intractable issues

In that car crash of an interview, he said: “It’s like this everywhere else in the world.”

He attempted to lump Cape Town into this bracket in an effort to deflect attention from what is a broken embarrassment of a metro.

Days later, Morero tabled a proposal at a party regional lekgotla to hire foreign nationals with “proper documents” as JMPD officers, somehow trying to justify this by stating that they could speak “foreign African languages”, which are used by some criminals. After trying to ‘clarify’ his idea, he withdrew the ill-considered proposal after a public outcry. (Perhaps the mayor needs to reconsider who he’s appointed as advisors!)

Morero is mostly correct in that the decisions taken by an administration now will generally only impact residents in the years to come. Budgets are set in three-year cycles, and there isn’t an awful lot of wiggle room in the metropolitan municipal space. Some decisions taken by Mpho Phalatse in 2022 will only be seen and felt this year and next.

A prominent politician in the country has privately shared that they believe it would take at least a decade to fix Johannesburg.

That means three successive – and stable – administrations. Since December 2019, the city has had seven (SEVEN!) different mayors across nine terms (Phalatse and Morero have each served twice, given the instability in the metro).

The mayor’s main issues

Morero has a few major problems.

First, the city has effectively not had a ‘proper’ mayor for two years. His 25-day term and Phalatse’s doomed three-month second term don’t count, and neither do those of stooges Thapelo Amad and Kabelo Gwamanda. That means there have been few – if any – strategic decisions taken for 24 months. Morero knows this and is lowering expectations accordingly (albeit in a ham-fisted manner).

Listen: City in crisis: Civil society calls for Joburg mayor’s removal [Jul 2024]

Second, his main priority in his previous role as Finance MMC was to raise funding (debt) to pay for capital projects. The city’s R83 billion budget cannot fund these for a multitude of reasons. Now, as mayor, he has to try to get those deals done and also handle mayoral responsibilities.

One would hardly describe his replacement in the finance role, Margaret Arnolds – the city’s previous speaker from the obscure African Independent Congress – as qualified for this critical role. The thought of Arnolds being ‘in charge’ (nominally, of course, as Morero will surely try to keep an eye on this too) of the next budget cycle ought to give ratepayers sleepless nights.

Finally, the calculating nature of politics plays a role here.

Morero absolutely knows he cannot take any major decisions today that we will only see the impact of in two years’ time, lest an opposition coalition be in charge after the 2026 elections (a very, very real possibility). That administration would be able to claim the credit for this immediately. And so he is hamstrung.

Of course, the largest negative impact being felt by residents is as a result of decaying water and electricity supply networks managed by Joburg Water and City Power respectively. Morero sort of admitted this to News24 (after first denying that there were issues in areas of Joburg): “There might have been challenges, here and there, with water in the main – and, with electricity, we’ve been trying to do something called ‘waste reduction’.”

Read:
City of Joburg loses nearly half its water, costing billions [Apr 2023]
Joburg’s R6.6bn lost water and electricity shame [Jun 2024]

Here, large capital replacement projects (a key pipeline or a substation, for example) take years and years to plan, fund and execute. That cycle will continue, and Morero is mostly correct that he is not a magician.

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Where he can score quick wins

Challenges around capital investment aside, there are some easy, quick wins for Morero that will make the lives of everyone who lives, works, or visits Joburg easier.

Tackle these issues from both angles. For example, focus on the 10 biggest mini substation problems in each region. Get those fixed – even if just temporarily – until they can be replaced. But on the newer kit, start catching up on proactive maintenance.

Joburg Water can carry on fixing the enormous pipe bursts plaguing the city each day, but along with this, it ought to focus on repairing the countless leaks that are deemed ‘non-urgent’ and that are left for weeks and months.

Read:
Johannesburg needs R221bn to fix infrastructure
Johannesburg weighs bond sale to help fix broken infrastructure

Perhaps the easiest win of all is with the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA).

Most traffic lights in the city work now, as we haven’t had load shedding for almost six months (and the summer rains haven’t started). Address the cable joints that plague major intersections, which are the root cause of outages when it rains. Set targets per region: x number of intersections to be done per month.

Then, address short-timed and badly-timed intersections (not rocket science). These two ‘small’ changes have the possibility of impacting the lives of millions of people daily.

While he’s at it, Morero can resolve the impasse between JRA and the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport to ensure that the JRA takes back maintenance and repairs of traffic lights at intersections on provincial roads. Currently, these take weeks (months) to repair as Gauteng relies on contractors.

What about the hundreds of kilometres of pavements that look as if they’ve been hit by meteors? Although this doesn’t have a direct impact on anyone, these should be systematically tackled and reinstated.

Read: Why Joburg’s roads, pavements look like a war zone (and CT’s don’t)

Most importantly, implement pay-for-performance across the city’s entities (City Power, JRA, Joburg Water, City Parks).

Set targets – and stretch targets – for each region and each depot. Get 20% more maintenance done in a given month? What about 50%? Pay bonuses!

Now, ensuring this is an audited process and not abused is another matter entirely. (Eskom, however, proves this is not inconceivable.)

Instead, we now have ‘leadership’ from a mayor for the next two years who seems determined to set the bar as low as possible. And thus, the city will just stumble along, continuing its steady near-irreversible decline …

Listen/read: Joburg needs the finest people to lead the city – Malose Kekana

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