Cyril Ramaphosa to transform Joburg from dump into City of Gold

Cyril Ramaphosa vows to transform Joburg from a dump into City of Gold

President Cyril Ramaphosa has assured residents of Johannesburg that government is determined to resolve the challenges facing the city.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has assured residents of Johannesburg that government is determined to resolve the challenges facing the city. Image by Doruk Aksel Anıl/Pexels

President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to assure residents of the City of Johannesburg that government is determined to move with urgency to resolve the service delivery challenges facing the city.

The President was addressing residents during a stakeholder engagement at the Johannesburg City Council Chamber on Friday.

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Earlier in the day and on Thursday, the President together with the National Executive conducted an oversight visit to Gauteng.

“As a resident of Johannesburg, I share the concerns that have been expressed here about the deterioration of services and infrastructure.

“Over the last two days, members of the National Executive have engaged the leadership of Gauteng and the City of Johannesburg on the challenges they face and the work that is being done to address them.

“We are committed to ensuring cooperation among the three spheres of government to urgently attend to these challenges. We may well have said so in the past, but the enormity of the challenges and the problems compels us to now say we are going to redouble our efforts,” he said.

Highlighted challenges

The President highlighted some of the challenges facing the city, including deteriorating road infrastructure, the closure of public facilities like the Johannesburg Library and delayed or unfinished infrastructure.

“Through the Department of Cooperative Governance, National Treasury and the Provincial Government, we are supporting the City of Johannesburg to stabilise its governance and financial affairs.

“We need to ensure that we unlock service delivery backlogs and begin to address the backlog in infrastructure provision,” President Ramaphosa said.

Rejuvenating the city

Turning to the establishment of the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group announced earlier in the day, President Ramaphosa explained that the group will be made up of not only government bit also stakeholders.

A similar approach has been applied in KwaZulu-Natal with the establishment in 2024 of the eThekwini Presidential Working Group to turnaround the fortunes of Durban and position it as an investment and tourism hub.

“Our learnings in eThekwini make us confident that this is the correct model to address Johannesburg’s many challenges.

“Over the last month, the Presidency has engaged the City of Johannesburg, the province of Gauteng and some social partners on establishing a Presidential Johannesburg Working Group.

“There has been broad support from everyone engaged for an intergovernmental mechanism that will strengthen cooperation and leverage the expertise and resources of all stakeholders in the City of Johannesburg,” he said.

The working group’s first focus will be on governance and financial sustainability.

“We will work to strengthen the internal governance and financial management of the city by restoring institutional capacity. The second focus will be on water and sanitation and the third focus will be on electricity.

“We will work to stabilise critical infrastructure by improving maintenance, increasing funding and focusing on the whole value chain.

“The fourth focus will be on public spaces and beautifying the city. Specific interventions will include fixing road infrastructure, restoring street lighting and traffic lights, and enhancing waste collection throughout the city,” President Ramaphosa said.

Focus will also be placed on improving law enforcement and urban security, accelerating housing delivery, launching an inner-city rejuvenation project.

“We have set out a timeframe to achieve all this. It should not be an elongated timeframe. This Working Group will report on a regular basis to the Ministers and myself.

“We cannot act as if it is business as usual. We must recognise the crisis before us and meet it with the resources, timeframes and accountability measures required,” he said.

The President called on stakeholders to join hands with government to turn the city back to its former glory.

“Government cannot do it alone. The involvement of broader stakeholders in the Working Group will not only hold us collectively accountable to the targets set, but accelerate our efforts.

“In the coming weeks, my team will be engaging business, labour, civil society and academia regarding their respective roles in the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group.

“Johannesburg is a city of resilience. It is also a place of innovation and… a place of great hope. Let us move forward with determination, unity and a shared commitment to leaving no one behind,” President Ramaphosa concluded.