Arrest infrastructure decay before it happens – not after, says Cape Town Mayor. From Moneyweb.
Even the ANC grudgingly concedes that Cape Town is a city that functions. President Cyril Ramaphosa, in response to the fire that gutted the parliament building in 2022, observed that it is “the one city that works”.
Those frank words drew angry denunciations from some of his backbenchers, most of whom are ratepayers in DA-run Cape Town – and no doubt happy to reside in “the one city that works” while sending their children to private schools there.
Read: Western Cape municipalities and Midvaal are the only ones in any kind of shape
They may not like what amounts to a brutal admission of ANC governance failures across the country, but the very visible deterioration in Joburg – the city they control through a fragile coalition – will forever be imprinted on their foreheads.
All but the major banks have evacuated the Joburg CBD for Rosebank and Sandton, leaving behind a hive of office blocks converted into low-cost accommodation, retailers, cell phone shops and fast-food outlets. The Joburg Library reopened in August after being shuttered five years ago over structural and safety concerns.
When 1.5 million books are buried under plastic sheeting, something is awry in Africa’s most industrialised city.
The underground explosion that ripped through Joburg CBD’s Lillian Ngoyi Street (formerly Bree Street) in 2023, due to a methane gas build-up, is another metaphor for a city in freefall.
The street reopened last month after the city spent nearly R200 million on repairs that were bogged by delays, funding issues, and contractor problems.
Meanwhile …
Cape Town continues to stack its mantlepiece with awards.
Just this year, it was named the ‘Best City in the World’ by both the Telegraph Travel Awards and Time Out Magazine. Tourism in the city is growing at 7% a year, and property prices are up nearly 9% over the past year against just 2% in Joburg.
Average property prices in Cape Town are R2 million, versus R1.5 million in Joburg.
Joburg’s entropy has not gone unnoticed abroad, with Bloomberg pointing to coalition governance and ballooning debt as the prime reasons for its “spiral of decay”, while France 24 blames poor governance for the collapse of the city’s infrastructure.
Listen/read: ‘Ignore SA at your peril’ – BLSA CEO to G20 investors
Speaking at a Centre for Development Enterprise presentation this week, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis had some advice for his Joburg counterparts: fix your infrastructure before it fails, not after.
Spend (on the right things and in the right way)
Cape Town will triple its infrastructure budget this year, outspending Joburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni combined.
“The aim is to arrest early signs of infrastructure problems and hopefully get spare capacity, and address conditions in poor communities,” says Hill-Lewis.
Cape Town secured its third consecutive clean audit from the Auditor-General SA (AG) in 2025, the only metro to do so, enabling a record R39.7 billion infrastructure spend over three years – 75% targeted at low-income households.
Despite his liberal democratic avatar, Hill-Lewis is no fan of outsourcing all services to the private sector – the so-called “Yellow Pages test”, popularised in the US city of Minneapolis, where anything available in the yellow pages should be contracted out to companies.
Trash collection in Cape Town’s informal settlements is outsourced, but Hill-Lewis says “the outcomes are reasonably poor”.
“Where we [City of Cape Town] do the trash collection, we do a damn good job.”
He doesn’t discount the benefits of outsourcing, but these should be focused on core services that are often too costly and bulky for the metro to provide.
Tug of war
The areas where Cape Town fails are generally those where national government is in charge, such as crime prevention, passenger rail, and port management.
The World Bank recently ranked Cape Town among the five worst ports in the world, though much improved in 2024, due to underinvestment in equipment and poor management by Transnet Ports.
Commuter rail numbers are down 85% on 2019, but now recovering. Passenger rail services suffer from the same ideological folly as Transnet: the idea that the state must retain centralised control.
Read:
Backlash against World Bank’s ranking of Durban as the world’s worst port
Cape Town pushes harder for policing, rail and port control
Durban comes dead last in 2024 World Bank port rankings
Says Hill-Lewis: “There is a tug of war within the ANC on this, but the result is stasis. There was a formal cabinet decision to decentralise passenger transport to capable metros – but since then, nothing. We keep knocking at this door until it opens.”
That door will eventually be prised open out of financial necessity.
There can be no more bailouts and rescue packages for underperforming state-owned companies, meaning that private sector companies will have to provide the capital needed for infrastructure upgrades.
Reining in crime gangs
To rein in Cape Town’s crime gangs, the city is pushing for devolved policing powers – expanding the existing metro police to take on more investigative and prosecutorial responsibilities traditionally reserved for the national South African Police Service (SAPS).
This stems from frustration with SAPS inefficiencies, as shown by its 95% failure to convict in 1 400 illegal firearms recovered in the city in the last three years.
Some 80% of these failures were due to SAPS investigative lapses, having been handed prosecution-ready cases on a silver platter.
If that’s happening in illegal firearm cases, imagine what’s happening in rape, murder and other serious crimes, said Hill-Lewis.
The city has adopted a Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) in partnership with the DA-led Western Cape provincial government, deploying 1 300 officers across 13 high crime areas to provide visible policing as a deterrent.
This approach has cut crime in hotspots like Mitchells Plain, but convictions lag due to SAPS bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
“We’ve been talking about this [devolved policing powers] for three years with no improvement in conviction rates, so we need to do something,” he added.
There is widespread support for stronger local policing in Cape Town, with the national police ministry gradually warming to the idea.
Hill-Lewis takes comfort from the fact that any decision not to grant these powers, if irrational, is reviewable in law.
Get rid of stupid rules
All 34 000 of the city’s staff are encouraged to flag stupid rules that are seen as a waste of time or no longer relevant. The idea came from Michael Jordaan, former CEO at FNB, who implemented a similar “stupid rules” programme at the bank in the 2010s that helped cut red tape and costs.
Cape Town adapted this post-2021, aligning with the DA’s merit-based governance ethos.
It’s part of broader red-tape reduction efforts, including the city’s annual review of by-laws and processes, which helped secure three consecutive clean audits from the AG.
These are the lessons that Joburg has yet to take on board, but that too will eventually happen out of financial necessity.
What a difference a GNU makes
The government of national unity (GNU), with key portfolios like tourism and public works now in DA hands, has made a noticeable difference to life in the city.
The Department of Home Affairs introduced an e-visa system allowing visitors from India and China – the two most populous countries in the world – to apply for visas online, whereas previously they had to arrive in person at a South African embassy office. “It’s shocking how poorly we do in the India and China tourism markets. Very few come to SA.”
Listen/read: New AI-powered visa system to boost SA tourism and investment
The introduction e-visas and Trusted Tour Operator Schemes, allowing for easier online tour bookings once tour operators are accredited, has the potential to increase the number of visitors from these markets by three to five times.
Public Works, as owner and custodian of state land, is another department that has the potential to improve economic conditions in the city.
The problem is these parcels of land are used by different government departments, which have no incentive to part with them because all sales proceeds go to National Treasury. One solution is to compel the minister of finance to change the rules so that the department using the land gets to keep the proceeds when the land is sold.
How is GNU doing?
“It’s done as well as could be expected,” said Hill-Lewis.
“It’s a very new experiment in SA governance. The core KPI [key performance indicator] is whether it can change the growth trajectory – and on that score, it has not worked.
“It still has a lot of work to do, but it’s infinitely better than all the other alternatives.”
