Mr President, please keep calling Dada Morero — Joburg depends on it

Dear Sir,

I was so interested to hear on Monday at the opening of the ANC National General Council that you had our executive mayor, Dada Morero, on speed dial and called him every day ahead of the G20 to ensure your head of state visitors from across the world had a good Joburg welcome.

It worked, hey.

For the first time in years, we Joburg residents had mass clean-ups, the verges were cut after what seemed like a decade, the highway lights were changed after years of our complaints and posts falling on deaf ears. Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi even promised (and delivered — now that’s a start) that there would be no electricity and water cuts in the Nasrec environment where our guests were hosted for a fabulous G20 meeting.

(There were power cuts and the usual dry taps elsewhere, but who wants to be churlish in the festive season?)

Now we know this came about because you called Mayor Morero. Every. Single. Day. We hope you will keep his number on speed dial and continue to call daily because, surely, as you drive from your Hyde Park home to the Union Buildings or to Luthuli House, you see that the city is back on go-slow.

Where everything’s outsourced

In Johannesburg, the ANC is not in renewal mode — the term you use to plot a future — Africa’s oldest liberation movement is in trouble.

As you were instructing cadres to do the work of government and not outsource everything from printing to engineering to guarding, this gem of a story from Anna Cox dropped on Daily Maverick. As you were speaking, we learnt that the city spends R16-million a month on guards while it has 4,000 recently insourced security guards.

In the same article, Cox also reported on multimillion-rand scandals that cost the ANC when its support in Gauteng tumbled to 34% last year.

On the final extension of the Rea Vaya BRT (bus rapid transport system), more than R1-billion has been spent on conflicted contracts to family, friends, etc, according to Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke. We’ve been trying to follow the money for months, but Mayor Morero said it was all above board, although he won’t show us how. And R1-billion could easily help shelter the city’s homeless population.

So, ja, keep calling.

We now have a Johannesburg newsletter three times a week, in which people tell us stories about the city. A reader who writes to me almost daily says the Sjampanje bridge in Roodepoort has been dysfunctional for almost four years (no lies — the Johannesburg Roads Agency has confirmed it). The G20 bwanas weren’t going to drive past there, so it didn’t get the quick fix.

The JRA says the repair job has to go out to tender (that pesky outsourcing problem again), and so it may be fixed next year. Or not. Our colleagues at Our City News have reported that there are 700 (!) bridges in need of repair in Joburg, 68 of them urgently. (Here’s the story to WhatsApp to Dada.)

Face of factionalism

I was listening to you very carefully on Monday at the NGC when you said the ANC needed new and better leaders to win back the trust of the masses, especially in the cities. Ahead of next year’s local government elections, things are looking bleak. The ANC lost six of eight metros, and the two you still lead, Mangaung and Buffalo City, are basket cases.

At the weekend, the ANC region in Joburg elected Loyiso Masuku as regional secretary, and I’m sure she’ll turf Dada out quite soon. It’s the way the ANC in Joburg rolls — it is the face of the ANC factionalism you spoke out so forcefully about. Ms Masuku (whom I don’t know, so I can’t call her by her first name) is a big believer in cadre deployment. Big!

Even though you and other leaders in the ANC have agreed that independent and well-qualified boards and administrations must run municipal entities and administrations in the cities, in Joburg, not so much. When Ms Masuku was the MMC for corporate services, she allegedly stacked all the entity boards in the city with cadres either from the ANC, the EFF or the PA, the three big parties to the coalition which “run” the city. (I put “run” in inverted commas because they often run it into the ground).

The Daily Maverick has repeatedly requested details and rationale for board appointments from the City, but these have not been forthcoming.

Joburg is the only metro with 13 entities, and it’s a bit of an eat fest as Anna Cox reported here about how executives sommer pay themselves whatever they want. So, you can see that in Johannesburg, ANC renewal isn’t working so well because word and deed are not Siamese twins in the ANC.

I believe it’s the same across the country. Your NGC base document notes that the party’s Achilles heel is local government, where poor services are alienating voters. I saw the other day that the DA took Hyde Park (your home ward) by 97% in a recent by-election.

Don’t forget about your city as the G20 show moves to Miami. Keep that finger on the dial.

Warmest Jozi wishes,

Ferial Haffajee DM