City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality

History

During the apartheid era, Johannesburg was divided into 11 local authorities, seven of which were white and four black or coloured. The white authorities were 90% self-sufficient from property tax and other local taxes, and spent Rand 600 (USD $93) per person, while the black authorities were only ten percent self-sufficient, spending Rand 100 (USD $15) per person.

The first post-apartheid City Council was created in 1995. The council adopted the slogan "One City, One Taxpayer" in order to highlight its primary goal of addressing inequal tax revenue distribution. To this end, revenue from wealthy, traditionally white areas would help pay for services needed in poorer, black areas. The City Council was divided into four regions, each with a substantially autonomous local regional authority that was to be overseen by a central metropolitan council. Furthermore, the municipal boundaries were expanded to include wealthy satellite towns like Sandton and Randburg, poorer neighbouring townships such as Soweto and Alexandra, and informal settlements like Orange Farm. The four councils or Metropolitan Local Councils (MLCs) were the Northern MLCl, Southern MLC, Eastern MLC and Western MLC (sometimes referred to as Metropolitan Substructures), under a central metropolitan council. This arrangement ended in 2000.

In 1999, Johannesburg appointed a city manager in order to reshape the city's ailing financial situation. The manager, together with the Municipal Council, drew up a blueprint called "Igoli 2002". This was a three-year plan that called upon the government to sell non-core assets, restructure certain utilities, and required that all others become self-sufficient. The plan took the city from near insolvency to an operating surplus of Rand 153 million (USD 23.6 million).

The plan was fiercely contested by trade unions, who argued that it would result in job losses and tariff increases. The core of Igoli 2002 was to restructure Metro Gas, Rand Airport, and some sports stadiums as stand-alone corporate entitites. The city bus service, the Johannesburg Zoo, the Civic Theatre, the Fresh Produce Market, and the city's property holdings were turned into corporations with the city as the single shareholder. Each was run as a business, with management hired on performance contracts.

In 2010/11 the municipality faced a qualified audit from the Auditor-General following a large number of billing issues, as the result of the flawed implementation of a SAP system. The city's call centre also experienced a crisis at the same time, with staff refusing to work.

Geography

The municipality covers an area of 1,645 square kilometres (635 sq mi), stretching from Orange Farm in the south to Midrand in the north.

Main places

The 2011 census divided the municipality into the following main places:

Politics

The municipal council consists of 270 members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. 135 are elected by first-past-the-post voting in 135 wards, while the remaining 135 are chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 3 August 2016 the African National Congress (ANC) won the largest share of the seats on the council with 121 but did not achieve a majority. On 22 August 2016, minority parties voted with the DA to elect its mayoral candidate, Herman Mashaba, as the first Democratic Alliance mayor of Johannesburg. Mashaba appointed a mayoral committee consisting of the DA and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

The following table shows the results of the 2016 election.

City structure

Each province determines the structure of local government in its region. Gauteng province, run by the African National Congress, has opted for an executive mayor system.

Amos Mosondo was the first executive mayor.

The city management team head office is the Metro Centre Complex in Braamfontein, which is responsible for overall administration, financial control, supply of services, and collection of revenues. The fire department and ambulances, the metropolitan police and traffic control, museums, art galleries, and heritage sites are all controlled by separate departments.

Some of the key city service functions are supplied by separate, self-contained entities, each run on business lines with its own CEO.

There are 10 utilities, including electricity which is run by City Power Johannesburg, water and sanitation which is run by Johannesburg Water, and solid waste management, also known as Pikitup. Utilities are registered companies, run on business lines. They must be self-funding, receiving no annual grants from the city. They provide billable services direct to individual households.

Agencies include Johannesburg Roads, City Parks and Johannesburg Development Agency. Each of these performs a service to the public at large – there are no direct charges to individual consumers. These are also structured as separate companies, but they are reliant on the council for funding.

The zoo, Civic Theatre, bus service, fresh produce market and property company each compete in the open market to "sell" their wares to individual consumers who choose to pay for their services. These departments have been "corporatised" into separate businesses, run by new managements on performance contracts, and tasked to cut their subsidy levels by R100-million in the next five years.

Regions

The administration of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality was decentralised initially into 11 regions (largely unrelated to the 11 former apartheid administrations). These new regions were subsequently reduced in number to 7 regions in 2006. Each region is operationally responsible for the delivery of health care, housing, sports and recreation, libraries, social development, and other local community-based services.

City councillors

As of the August 2016 municipal elections, there are now 270 City Councillors in Johannesburg. The Councillors are divided into two kinds: (1) Ward Councillors: those who have won office in one of Johannesburg's 135 electoral wards; and (2) Those who are elected by Proportional Representation (PR) on the basis of party lists.

Ward Councillors have more local responsibilities, including setting up Ward Committees in their wards to raise local issues, commenting on town planning and other local matters in their ward, and liaising with local ratepayers' and residents' associations. PR Councillors are usually allocated to more political tasks within their party structures and within the City.