Freezing weather, power blackouts and water cut-offs – on top of a surging pandemic.
Johannesburg residents can be forgiven for feeling the Armageddon has come this winter. In truth, however, they are feeling the effects of decades of poor leadership, dishonest funding allocations, skewed priorities, lack of accountability and absence of vision.
The ANC-led Johannesburg Municipality is running Jozi into the ground, and its DA/EFF predecessors are equally complicit. They blame each other, they blame Eskom and they blame City Power. But their blame games don't mask the fact that in their collective hands this African powerhouse city has been reduced to rubble.
Areas that bore the brunt of the serial mismanagement this month included Eldorado Park, Westbury, Westdene, Sophiatown, Fairland, Northcliff, Hursthill, Crosby, Coronationville, Montclare, Brixton, Lehae, Lenasia and Soweto.
Hospitals were stranded without water, and it was left to private organisations like Gift of the Givers to step in to provide water to the most vulnerable residents.
GOOD members gathered outside Johannesburg City Hall on 11 June carrying posters noting their disgust.
The protest followed a fact-finding mission to Eldorado Park, where residents said they felt utterly neglected and marginalised.
They rejected the stream of unfulfilled promises from Mayor Geoff Makhubo and his MMCs as just more hot air.
Johannesburg needs a deliverable plan to stabilise, upgrade and expand critical infrastructure to support local communities and economies.
What it needs it doesn't get, however, from a dilly-dallying, corrupt and incompetent government, led by a man clinging to power despite serious corruption allegations against him.
In October, citizens have the opportunity to effect sustainable change when they go to the polls in local government elections.
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