Johannesburg Mayor Quits Amid Infighting, Financial Woes

(Bloomberg) -- The mayor of Johannesburg has quit after months of political infighting and as South Africa’s biggest city struggles to balance its budget.

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Kabelo Gwamanda’s resignation will be effective once a new mayor has been elected, the city said in a statement. A meeting to elect a new mayor will take place on Aug. 16.

Financial and political turmoil in recent years has beset the city of about 5 million people that’s had eight mayors since 2019 due to constantly shifting coalitions. While the African National Congress and Economic Freedom fighters are the largest parties in the ruling coalition with 119 seats between them, they installed Gwamanda — a mayor from the Al-Jama-ah party that has just three seats. There are 270 councilors in total.

Gwamanda has faced calls for his resignation from opposition parties and civil-society groups as services have deteriorated. Potholes are unattended for months, power supply in some areas is erratic and a swath of the city had no water for as long as 11 days earlier this year.

The city, billed as Africa’s richest because of its concentration of businesses and millionaires, needs 221 billion rand ($12.1 billion) to catch up on maintenance and overdue upgrades across its collapsing road, power and water networks, documents seen by Bloomberg show.

A separate document, dated March 6, showed that the city is struggling with revenue collection from large customers including government departments and companies, with 6.1 billion rand of payments more than 90 days overdue.

Last month, Johannesburg’s council imposed above-inflation increases for utilities and rates and forced through a 2.5 billion-rand loan from the Agence Francaise de Developpement despite objections from opposition parties including the Democratic Alliance. The DA said there hadn’t been clarity on what the money was needed for.

National Election

The shakeup follows South Africa’s May 29 national elections in which the ANC lost its majority for the first time in 30 years of rule.

The ANC has agreed to a national alliance with the DA and a number of smaller parties to form a government. That alliance excludes the EFF.

That’s created a situation where the EFF is in the national opposition but helps the ANC govern the biggest city.

Talks about reorganizing the coalition that rules Johannesburg have taken place in recent weeks.

Those have “been largely informed by the new political architecture of governance in the country” following the elections, the city said.

The ANC has nominated Dada Morero, Johannesburg’s member of the mayoral committee for finance, to become mayor, Sasabona Manganye, the party’s regional secretary, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. Morero was mayor for 25 days in 2022 before being removed after a court challenge.

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(Updates with ANC nominating a mayoral candidate in last paragraph)

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