The richest city in Africa sets its sight on a $12 billion challenge

One of South Africa’s premier cities Johannesburg, which is tagged the richest city in Africa has enumerated a $12 billion infrastructure objective.

• Johannesburg aims to fix $12 billion worth of infrastructure issues.
• The city council examined the deficit and identified long-overdue repairs for water, electricity, and road systems.
• Frequent power outages and water shortages have affected parts of Johannesburg.

The South African city, which is listed as Africa’s richest city, owing to its high concentration of businesses and high-net-worth-individuals, aims to fix its infrastructure issues to the tune of 221 billion rand ($12 billion).

The cost is intended to tackle and or complete long-overdue repairs, poor water network, electricity shortages, and its detoriating road systems.

In December last year, the city council examined the deficit and detailed its plans on a documents which was obtained and reported on by Bloomberg.

Details in the document highlights frequent power outages that affect vast areas of Johannesburg due to distribution network failures.

Last year, South Africa struggled with a very concerning and sub-par electricity supply.

Certain areas in Johannesburg were impacted by this problem, as well as water shortages that lasted for as many as 11 days.

Additionally, officials neglected potholes for months.

The work pileup “highlights significant risks to public safety, economic safety, and the environment if not addressed,” the city said of the road network in the documents.

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“Ignoring the backlog could lead to deteriorating roads, unsafe bridges, flooding and increased accidents.”

Leadership challenges in Johannesburg

Instability in politics, as well as fiscal challenges, seems to be two of the city’s biggest challenges.

This issue as seen on Bloomberg has resulted in 8 mayors taking turns on the city official’s seat since 2019 owing to continually shifting alliances.

While the African National Congress and Economic Freedom Fighters are the ruling coalition’s main parties, with 119 seats each, they have appointed a mayor from the Al-Jama-ah party, which has only three seats. There are 270 councilors in all.