DA wins Cyril’s Hyde Park ward by 97%

BREAKING NEWS

Johannesburg may soon get its ninth mayor since the local government election in 2021. Finance MMC Loyiso Masuku has trounced Dada Morero as the ANC’s regional chairperson. She may want to take over the chains asap. Dada Morero is on his second round as mayor and three ANC mayors passed away while serving their terms. More on Wednesday.

1. Cyril Ramaphosa’s home ward elect DA councillor with 97% win

President Cyril Ramaphosa is a popular resident of Hyde Park where he walks regularly and often visits Exclusive Books to stock up. The area is swish and swanky but it struggles with service delivery issues like water and really poor road conditions. In a November 27 by-election following the death of the highly regarded councillor and former editor, Martin Williams, the party won the ward again. No surprises there. But the extent of Renata van Onselen’s victory tells you a story. The party is up from 64.51% in 2024 to 97.18% – that is the Helen Zille effect.

Since announcing her candidacy as Joburg mayor, Zille has energised the Johannesburg “base” – political speak for core support in an area for a party. I had a chat with Gabriel Meakin of the Social Research Foundation who poll weekly. While they do not have a Joburg sub-sample, he said that 59.6% of their total sample supported Zille’s candidacy, while 50% of ANC supporters did so too. That’s quite a story and I will be following it next year when local government elections in general and the race for Joburg, in particular, will be the news of 2026.

Here are the five candidates who want to be your mayor.

2 . Billing problems? Here’s your city Ombud team – cash-strapped and under-resourced, but working bloody hard for you

We know that billing is the biggest crisis in the city. It’s mission critical and getting worse as the cash-strapped city tries by every means to get its hands on our hard-earned Randelas. Many people turn to lawyers.

“This is the question that baffles us: Why do people spend money on lawyers for billing and municipal issues when they can come to us for free?” said Advocate Colman Ramontja. “We have legally trained investigators, we check every matter meticulously, and we tell you upfront whether you have a case — and we conduct free mediation between parties, bringing them together to avoid court action — all free of charge.”

The City of Johannesburg’s Office of the Ombudsman appears, at first glance, to be one of the metro’s few success stories. It exceeds nearly every performance target: 99% processing compliance, a 70% resolution rate, a 61% drop in backlog cases and 21 proactive investigations into service-delivery failures.

Strained resources threaten Joburg ombudman’s role as residents’ last hope

3. Bring back the baby-savers

Our partners at Our City News have been investigating what happened after the Social Development department closed up the baby-saver boxes.

Infant abandonment rises in Joburg as legal battle over ‘baby savers’ continues

4. An informal settlement in Bryanston. No lies!

News24 Our colleague at News24, Alex Patrick, had a blockbuster of a story last week. She revealed that a Bryanston mansion had been hijacked and had become an informal settlement. A day later, the city raided and this is what they found. (News24 is paywalled and well worth a subscription.)

JOBURG 'PERSON OF THE DAY'

“Our mission is to empower responsible entrepreneurs driving transformative change,” says Johannesburg’s Gladwyn Leeuw, CEO of E Squared, a South African impact investor that funds and supports high-growth ventures and social enterprises to create jobs and tackle inequality. In a massive boost to the country’s start-up technology sector, they recently partnered with the SA SME Fund, the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) to launch a R300-million Seed Fund that aims to fund at least 50 technology-driven startups through experienced fund managers, with a focus on innovation and transformation in South Africa.

HEARD RECENTLY

“One day there is going to be a serious accident. I do feel they should be given their own lanes that are clearly marked as such. Better still would be to declare Emmarentia a walking only park. In other words, no cyclists.” - Robert Simmonds on cyclists in Emmarentia

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Love our newsletter? Subscribe here or please forward it to a friend.