Morero under fire for broken promise to keep Joburg clean and safe after G20

Two months after the G20 Leaders’ Summit, Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero has admitted that the inner city is regressing.

This comes after a person posted a video on X showing the poor state of the Joburg CBD since November, when South Africa hosted world leaders at the first G20 summit on African soil.

“Officials have dropped the ball, I said this in December, but we are not folding. The inner city is a priority,” said Morero in response to complaints on X.

The G20 commitment

When The Citizen spoke to Morero at the G20 Leaders Summit in November, he was adamant that the City of Johannesburg would continue to keep the streets clean after the world leaders left South Africa.

“I said that when I came into office that the city has the capacity to turn around, and I then said part of my work is to deal with constraints within the management teams to ensure that I unblock what has been making them not to move.

“As managers and leaders, I have always said this is a management issue, so deal with that and correct that, and that is why we are beginning to see results,” he said.

Morero launched a “high impact” programme to address service delivery challenges in parts of the city. But questions have been raised about the effectiveness of these programmes.

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DA slams Morero

DA caucus leader, Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, told The Citizen that Morero’s response about the regression in the CBD is deeply concerning.

She described it as “frankly, a slap in the face of Johannesburg residents”.

“The DA has long raised concerns about the misallocation of resources at the expense of basic service delivery. Unfortunately, the consequences of these poor decisions are now being felt by residents across the city.

“While the mayor acknowledged failures, there was no clear or concrete plan presented to address them. This lack of leadership is evident in ongoing delays in power restoration, deteriorating roads and the return of widespread littering,” she said.

The debate over the revitalisation of the inner city also comes at a time when political parties prepare to contest each other for power through local government elections.

Short-term fix

Political analyst Theo Neethling said the short-term fix approach municipalities take to service delivery is problematic.

“Many of the visible upgrades were tied to the G20; clean streets, traffic management, beautification, all these were driven by heightened focus and coordination for an international event.

“Some of these improvements have been positioned as permanent but we saw a rebound of service delivery disruptions. This suggests that, without deeper structural changes, the gains will not endure.”

Neethling said while the summit was beneficial to the country’s economy and global standing, there are doubts that the legacy of good service delivery will remain.

“The sustainability of urban upgrades remains in doubt because this is much about core infrastructure and the governance challenges that persist, hence why service delivery goes down once the cameras leave,” he said.

A mayor without power?

The latest round of criticism Morero faces comes at a time when he is no longer in charge of the ANC in Johannesburg. Instead, his political nemesis, Loyiso Masuku, is the chairperson of the ANC in the region.

Masuku is the MMC for Finance in the City of Johannesburg and those who support her have called for Morero to step down as mayor. They argue that Masuku should become mayor because she is the leader of the ANC in the region.

These calls have been rejected by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula.

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