JOHANNESBURG, GAUTENG — The ongoing Johannesburg infrastructure crisis has worsened as the municipality significantly missed its capital spending targets, prompting intense scrutiny from parliamentary oversight bodies. During a recent engagement with SCOPA, Executive Mayor Dada Morero revealed that the city spent only 49% of its R8.43 billion capital budget for the 2025/26 financial year by the end of March, falling drastically short of the 70% target.
Unaffordable Wage Agreements and Governance Concerns
The severe underspending compounds the city’s ongoing water and electricity outages, which are driven by decades of neglected maintenance. Beyond the capital budget shortfall, Mayor Morero defended a R10.3 billion wage agreement before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) and the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) committee, arguing it was a necessary price to pay for short-term labor peace.
However, this justification has faced fierce pushback. The National Finance Minister and opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA), argue the expenditure is completely unaffordable and unlawful.
Professor Alex van den Heever, a governance expert at the Wits School of Governance, notes that incurring expenditure without actual funding is illegal. He suggests the R10.3 billion allocation, alongside a planned expansion of nearly 2,000 additional workers without a revenue source, appears to be a political payoff rather than a genuine service delivery initiative. According to Van den Heever, this reflects a complete disregard for proper financial governance in the country’s economic hub.
Fictitious Revenues and Massive Backlogs
The city’s financial health is further strained by what experts describe as a “fictitious” revenue budget. Johannesburg is grappling with R25 billion in unpaid debts and claims a massive R200 billion infrastructure maintenance backlog. Furthermore, the municipality reports that 45% of its water is lost to leaks, while 30% of its power is lost to theft and system degradation.
Van den Heever argues that the city’s R97 billion overall budget is not sustainably funded, as its revenue-raising capabilities have effectively collapsed. The city is also losing money on bulk purchases from Eskom and Rand Water due to failing collection systems. In stark contrast, the City of Cape Town operates with a R13 billion capital budget entirely dedicated to new infrastructure, as it has no maintenance backlog and successfully balances its budget.
Questionable Write-offs and Lack of Accountability
Questions also surround the city’s accounting practices. While SCOPA noted a 44% drop in wasteful and irregular expenditure to R13 billion, opposition MPs argue this is merely an accounting trick. They allege the city used council votes to aggressively write off billions in unrecoverable revenue to clean up the balance sheet, effectively hiding potential corruption without holding a single person accountable.
Van den Heever echoes these concerns, pointing out that municipalities are legally required to balance their budgets and cannot run structural deficits like the national government. He criticizes parliamentary committees for merely asking for explanations rather than taking concrete action to enforce accountability, warning that the city is in a “financial death spiral” masked by manipulated budget displays.
Revenue Collection Excuses Dismissed
Addressing the tanking revenue collection, Mayor Morero claimed that municipal staff are paralyzed by fear of investigations initiated by former Mayor Herman Mashaba. Van den Heever dismissed this claim as “utter nonsense,” attributing the failure to basic systemic breakdowns such as broken meters and the inability to seamlessly disconnect non-paying users.
Ultimately, the governance expert concludes that the city’s collapse is driven by political infighting within the ANC and its coalition partners, who are more focused on scrambling for resources than doing their jobs. He warns that waiting for the next electoral process to fix the leadership is a delayed and insufficient response to the severe damage being inflicted on South Africa’s most critical economic hub.
