Joburg’s ward committees have collapsed — residents forced to govern themselves

Joburg’s civic safety net has quietly frayed.

At ward level, the city is meant to rely on its 135 ward committees, which are statutory bodies chaired by ward councillors and made up of community representatives, to deal with service delivery issues. They are supposed to act as the frontline between residents and the municipality.

Their role is meant to be practical and preventative: to log service-delivery problems, escalate them to City departments, feed local concerns into planning and budget processes and resolve issues before they escalate into crises.

These committees are supposed to be structured like the City’s mayoral committee, with a volunteer representing each city service department.

When ward committees work, they prevent burst pipes from becoming prolonged water outages, billing errors from turning into debt traps and minor infrastructure failures from becoming safety hazards.

Instead, residents across Joburg are being left to fend for themselves, relying on ward councillors, who are often not even in the governing coalition, and who, in reality, have no authority to issue instructions to city officials.

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These committees have largely failed across the city and are perceived by opposition political parties as another layer of ANC political control.

In the absence of visible or effective ward committees, residents’ associations — sometimes working with ward councillors and sometimes without them — have stepped in to fix what the City has not.

They now facilitate electricity and water repairs, chase pothole repairs, contest incorrect municipal bills, fund legal or technical expertise, and in some cases pay out of pocket for pothole repairs and refuse removal, simply to get basic services restored.

Few people can say who sits on their ward committee, where it meets, or how residents are meant to access it.

City says committees are functioning

The City disputes that the ward committee system has broken down.

According to spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane, the City has 135 constituted ward committees, of which 133 are actively functioning, “while two wards are officially not functional”.

Modingoane said that while not all ward committees met every month, “the functioning ward committees continue to perform their core responsibilities”, including “submitting monthly reports, participating in City programmes and events and assisting with the logging of service-delivery complaints”.

Modingoane said oversight of ward committees “resides with the Office of the Speaker” and that the City is reviewing its ward committee policy to strengthen the system.

On paper, the system appears intact.

On the ground, many residents say it is not.

‘Ward committees have become politicised’ – JCA

Political analyst Tessa Dooms, a director at the Rivonia Circle — a South African public-policy think tank focused on democratic governance, civic participation and institutional reform — and a steering-committee member of the Johannesburg Crisis Alliance (JCA), says ward committees were never meant to be replaced by residents’ associations, but have been steadily undermined.

“Ward committees should not be replaced by residents’ associations. They are meant to be active, functioning spaces for community engagement,” Dooms said.

“But residents’ associations increasingly choose to work outside council structures because ward committees have become politicised — the political role overshadows community matters.”

According to Dooms, this dysfunction plays out unevenly across the city. In lower-income and peri-urban areas, ward committees may still operate, but are often highly politicised, with party dynamics dominating participation. In suburban areas, she said, ward committees were frequently absent or dormant, leaving residents without a meaningful forum to raise issues.

“The result is that residents who have the capacity organise themselves, while those who don’t are left even more marginalised,” she said. “That deepens inequality between communities.”

‘Another layer of ANC political control’ – DA

Democratic Alliance Joburg caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku argues that ward committees in Joburg have been distorted into what she describes as a parallel political structure, rather than a neutral space for community participation.

“In many wards, ward committees have effectively become another layer of ANC political control, particularly in wards the ANC does not govern,” Kayser-Echeozonjoku said.

This politicisation had hollowed out the original purpose of ward committees, with direct consequences for service delivery, she said. “When ward committees don’t function independently, service-delivery failures don’t get escalated properly. Issues drag on for months, sometimes years, and residents lose faith in the system.”

An internal caucus report compiled by DA councillors, who chair ward committees in 42 wards, found that only 26 of those committees were functional, while the remainder were either non-functional or unresponsive.

The report cites recurring problems, including lack of quorum, failure to submit reports, politicisation and weak administrative support. It also recommends that residents’ associations be recruited into ward committees because they are already performing community functions — an implicit acknowledgement that formal structures are failing to command trust.

‘Ward committees left in limbo’ – ActionSA

ActionSA councillor Lebo Moloa said many ward committees were effectively in limbo, not because residents were unwilling to participate, but because they were not properly supported.

According to Moloa, the Office of the Speaker has failed to provide consistent training, guidance and clarity to ward committee members about their roles and responsibilities.

“Members are elected, but there is very little understanding of what the job actually entails,” Moloa said. “They are not properly trained, they are not supported and they are not given a clear framework for how to engage residents or work with City departments.”

She said that although ward committee elections were formally open to the public, apathy was widespread.

“People don’t participate because they don’t see results. When a structure has no real authority, no clear function and no visible impact on service delivery, residents disengage,” she said.

Moloa acknowledged that some ward committees did function well, largely because of committed volunteers, but said this depended on individuals rather than a functioning system. While politicisation occurred in some areas, she said administrative failure remained the core problem.

By contrast, she said residents’ associations were often preferred in suburban areas because they were not constrained by the same legislative and political framework.

“Residents’ associations are not controlled in the same way ward committees are,” Moloa said. “That allows them to focus directly on community problems instead of navigating party politics.”

Here’s how Joburg’s ward committees are meant to work; they should replicate the mayoral committee with volunteers each representing a city function:

City by-laws

Ward committees are not expensive structures. By law, each committee may include up to 10 community members, in addition to the ward councillor. Members receive a R1,000 monthly out-of-pocket allowance, equivalent to R12,000 per person per year.

If all permitted positions were filled across 135 wards, the maximum potential stipend exposure would be: 10 members × 135 wards × R12,000 per year = R16.2-million per annum.

The City does not publish a consolidated annual figure showing how much is actually spent, nor does it publish ward-by-ward membership lists, meeting schedules or reports. DM