After the Bell: How many Joburg executives does it take to fix a pothole?

I’m well past the point of taking anything anyone in the administration of the City of Johannesburg says about money seriously.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment this happened.

It might have been that excellent Currency News story from 18 months ago that explained how much of their budget disappeared into the holes of “irregular expenditure”.

You lose more than R12-billion of our money and no one faces any consequences?

Or perhaps it was when I realised that Dada Morero really does not have a clue about what is going on around him. I’ve never seen a person do so many radio and television interviews and just appear totally oblivious to what is going on around him.

I think a big moment was when Enoch Godongwana wrote that incredibly angry letter to Morero, spelling out exactly how deep Joburg’s hole is.

I know our finance minister gets a bad rap, but it’s hard to criticise him for holding people to account. One reading of that letter will reveal exactly how worried he is about Joburg.

But the final straw, the absolute final moment, was when Eskom said, just two weeks ago, that Joburg owed them more than R5-billion and still hadn’t paid it.

And then they asked what we had all been thinking: Why is it that I am paying money to Joburg for the electricity I use, but that money is not being paid to Eskom?

Where is it going?

It really confirms what my friend and fellow Joburger Ferial Haffajee said in her last newsletter, that this is “late administration looting”. It’s what happens when people realise the end is nigh and all they can do is take what they can.

Yesterday, Joburg’s finance head and deputy mayor, Loyiso Masuku, said her budget for the forthcoming financial year would be R97-billion. Last year it was R89-billion.

And can someone please tell me where that money is going to go? And why is it so much higher? And where will it come from?

Because I cannot see it being spent on anything around me. Or around anyone I work with. Or anyone I know.

No matter where a Joburger lives, they will have a complaint. The holy grail of life has become to have lights, water and Wi-Fi all working at the same time. And to have no outstanding car claims related to potholes.

All I know is that I am going to pay more and get virtually nothing for it.

What I just cannot get round is how Morero and Masuku are behaving.

Instead of any kind of sense that they’re seized with a crisis, they carry on blithely as before. Their entire message seems to suggest that “everything is fine”.

IT IS NOT!!!!

They’re giving R10-billion to South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) members when Godongwana has told them they cannot afford it.

Instead of spending money on crumbling infrastructure they’re employing more executives.

Not people to fix potholes, or pipes or cables. Executives.

I’m sure each one will get an air-conditioned office and probably a device of some kind and a Wi-Fi password.

What they should really get is a spade. Seriously. If the City was in any way serious it would have weekends where City workers would be out fixing potholes. I would come and help them, as would my street WhatsApp group

I wouldn’t be surprised if I could even convince the teenagers to come along, if they got to choose the playlist.

Filling potholes should go pretty quickly with a bit of Slipknot.

I can even imagine someone bringing a cooler box and a vibe.

I’m at the point where I try not to worry about what the administration does.

I’m lucky enough to have been able to buy my way out of the worst of it. But I worry about so many people in my life who can’t. Who are really suffering.

There is also going to be such a big fight in council that I’m not entirely sure deputy mayor and Finance MMC Loyiso Masuku will be able to get this budget through. It’s a difficult coalition where all of its members are facing elections in a few months.

I suspect they will each want a bit of “late administration looting”. And that might make a deal really difficult.

It might be tempting to think this budget doesn’t really matter because the political situation in Joburg might be about to change fundamentally.

But I’m afraid that’s not the case. A council cannot just vote to comprehensively change the budget after an election. And rightly so – the result of that would just be chaos.

Section 28 of the Municipal Finance Management Act spells out the requirements for an adjustment budget, saying that a new administration does not have carte blanche to simply start from scratch.

And, crucially, they are not able to change the charges and tariffs that are outlined in the previous budget for the financial year.

This means any new administration, if there is one after November, would still be tied by the majority of this budget.

Which might well explain why the current administration is so keen to give Samwu workers R10-billion and to employ a huge group of executives who would then be difficult to fire.

Joburg often looks like a farce.

But in reality it is a living, breathing and crying tragedy. DM