A city that works is a city you can rely on. When roads are maintained, electricity is steady, water systems hold up, and the administration runs without endless delays, everything else starts to lift. Certainty attracts investment. Investment brings jobs. Jobs drive growth. But when services are unreliable, uncertainty becomes the norm, and progress gets stuck before it even has a chance.
The City of Ekurhuleni’s financial record points to sustained governance and accountability failures. In the 2024/25 financial year, the municipality recorded a R2.7 billion impairment on traffic fines, R3 billion in electricity losses, and R42 million in irregular expenditure, as highlighted in the findings of the Auditor-General of South Africa. Against this backdrop, Ekurhuleni has also accumulated over R2.2 billion in unauthorised, irregular, and fruitless and wasteful (UIFW) expenditure, reflecting deep and ongoing weaknesses in financial management, procurement oversight, and internal controls.
These financial pressures contribute to broader socio-economic strain, including persistently high unemployment levels that continue to limit growth opportunity and deepen inequality across the city. These losses continue to place significant pressure on already constrained resources and undermine the City’s ability to deliver reliable basic services to residents.
Ekurhuleni has strong economic foundations that we should be building on. Our industrial base is still among the strongest in the country, backed by freight routes, manufacturing, and the fact that OR Tambo International Airport sits on our doorstep. Yet those strengths are being worn down by crime, inefficiency, and service failures that make it harder for businesses to operate, let alone expand. This is a city that should be doing better, and too often it isn’t.
If we’re to unlock growth, service delivery can’t be treated as an administrative afterthought. No business can plan around uncertainty, and no city can expect investment while the basics remain unpredictable. Across Ekurhuleni, residents and businesses live through water disruptions, recurring power outages, delayed refuse collection and deteriorating roads. These are not isolated problems but signs of the systemic consequences of a municipality that is unable to perform its most basic functions.
Financial credibility sits at the centre of this challenge. A municipality that cannot bill accurately or consistently undermines its own stability. Residents must be able to trust that what they are charged reflects reality. Disciplined budgeting, accurate billing, and the prioritisation of maintenance and core infrastructure are essential to restoring financial stability.
However, governance only matters when it delivers results. When procurement is flimsy and oversight comes and goes, inefficiency slips in, and misconduct is easier to hide. This concrete issue helps explain why projects grind to a halt, why costs balloon, and why services arrive late or not at all. For that reason, it is essential that stringent consequence management measures take place. If wrongdoing is proven, steps need to follow quickly and firmly. Weaknesses within the system need to be reinforced, not waved through as acceptable.
Safety is another area where the gap between expectation and reality is deeply felt. Residents want to live in communities where public spaces are safe, where infrastructure is protected and where law enforcement is visible and effective. The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department must therefore be properly equipped, properly staffed and properly managed.
Basic service delivery must include visible and consistent maintenance of public spaces and community facilities. This includes the provision of functioning streetlights, regular grass cutting in cemeteries, and the upkeep of sporting facilities to ensure safer, cleaner and healthier environments for all residents.
Effective policing and enforcement capacity also require the right resources. Tools such as body-worn cameras, functional vehicle fleets, and adequate training are not optional enhancements but essential requirements for a capable and professional service.
However, safety cannot rely on enforcement alone. It depends on coordinated action between municipal police services, the South African Police Service, Community Police Forums, and relevant border enforcement authorities. Given that criminal activity, particularly infrastructure theft, is organised and adaptive, the response must be equally coordinated and strategic.
Public infrastructure and shared community places need steady care, not occasional bursts of attention. Parks, transport hubs, libraries, halls, toilets, all of it, cannot be left to slip until the area reads as forgotten, or starts to feel unsafe. If working with private partners can help keep sites maintained and secure, that option can be taken up, but only with care, in the open, and with responsibilities and results clearly pinned down. One of the most stubborn problems in local government is how easily prevention gets traded for late responses.
Too often, infrastructure is repaired only after it fails, making service delivery more costly and disruptive. A functioning city invests in proactive maintenance before breakdowns occur, using routine monitoring to identify risks early and direct resources where they are needed most.
Equally important is ensuring that public money visibly serves the public. Residents should be able to see how their rates and service payments are spent. Ring-fencing funds for water and electricity infrastructure Will help rebuild the lost trust because payment will directly result in delivery.
Getting Ekurhuleni working will require discipline, determination, and an unwavering commitment to accountability. It begins with stabilising the city’s finances and ensuring that resources are directed first and foremost toward basic service delivery and the safety of residents.
The reality is that Ekurhuleni has not achieved the level of sustained economic growth or service reliability that residents expect. This is not due to a lack of potential, but rather inconsistent service delivery and lack of accountability. The course of action I propose is a return to basics, including functional governance, financial discipline, and a focused effort to rebuild the conditions necessary for growth and reliable service delivery.
Residents are not asking for perfection, but for a city that functions reliably and delivers on its basic responsibilities. Getting Ekurhuleni working is not a slogan. It is a commitment to doing the unglamorous work of governance properly, repeatedly, and without excuses.