City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality

The new post-apartheid administration was the "Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council" (GJMC), also known as the "Transitional Metropolitan Council", created in 1995.[7] The council adopted the slogan "One City, One Taxpayer" to highlight its primary goal of addressing unequal tax revenue distribution. To this end, revenue from wealthy, traditionally white areas would pay for services needed in poorer, black areas. The City Council was divided initially into seven municipal substructures (MSSs), rationalized within a year to four MSSs, each with a substantially autonomous authority or "Metropolitan Local Council" (MLC) that was to be overseen by the 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.[7] The four MLCs were: the Southern MLC covering Ennerdale, most of Soweto, parts of Diepmeadow and the old Johannesburg City and Lenasia; the Northern MLC covering Randburg and Randburg CBD, and parts of Soweto, Diepmeadow and the old Johannesburg City; the Eastern MLC covering Sandton, Alexandra, and part of the old Johannesburg City; the Western MLC covering Roodepoort, Dobsonville and parts of Soweto, Diepmeadow.[8]

However, the new post-apartheid City Council ran into problems in part due to inexperienced management and political pressure, which contributed to over-ambitious revenue projections, over-spending, wasted expenditures and out-right fraud.[5] In the newly combined metropole services were unnecessarily duplicated. But, by far, the biggest financial drain was the failure to collect revenues for services, which ranged from rent (rates) to utilities. Part of this failure was a result of the anti-apartheid boycott of paying the government.[9][7]

In 1999, Johannesburg appointed a city manager to reshape the city's ailing financial situation.[9][10] The manager, together with the Municipal Council, drew up a blueprint called "iGoli 2002". This was a restructuring plan to be completed in 2002, that called upon the government to sell non-core assets, restructure certain utilities, and required that all others become self-sufficient. The plan was strongly opposed by unions who feared a loss of jobs.

The eleven superseded regions

In 1999 the Municipal Demarcation Board conducted a study of metropolitan areas and other large councils, and found that Johannesburg should be declared as a "category A" municipality.[11] The following Local Government Municipal Systems Act no. 32 of 2000 replaced the GJMC, its four MLCs and also the neighbouring Midrand Local Authority, with the new "City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality" from 6 December 2000.[12][13] The iGoli 2002 plan went into effect and returned some sectors into "cash cows" that helped support the city in general.[14] Although some jobs were lost, there were no mass firings, as agencies used attrition to remove excess staff.[15] The plan took the city from near insolvency[10] to an operating surplus of R 153 million (US$23.6 million).[9]

Following the relative success of iGoli 2002, the city undertook a number of initiatives both to help equalise municipal services benefits, such as the water utility's Free Basic Water policy, and to curb fraud and increase payment percentages, such as the water utility's Operation Gcin'amanzi to repipe areas to eliminate siphonage and to install water meters for excess use.[16]

For the first six years the city was administered in eleven numbered regions, which were: "Region 1": Diepsloot, Kya Sand; "Region 2": Midrand, Ivory Park; "Region 3": Sandton, Rosebank, Fourways, Sunninghill, Woodmead, Strijdom Park; "Region 4": Northcliff, Rosebank, Parktown; "Region 5": Roodepoort, Northgate, Constantia Kloof; "Region 6": Doornkop, Soweto, Dobsonville, Protea Glen; "Region 7": Alexandra, Wynberg, Bruma; "Region 8": Inner City (Johannesburg CBD); "Region 9": Johannesburg South, South Gate, Aeroton, City Deep; "Region 10": Diepkloof, Meadowlands; "Region 11": Ennerdale, Orange Farm, Lenasia.[17]

Urban sustainability analysis of the greater urban area of the city using the 'Circles of Sustainability' method of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme

The present day City of Johannesburg was created from eleven existing 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 produced and spent R 600 (US$93) per person in municipal services, while the black authorities were only 10% self-sufficient, spending R 100 (US$15) per person in municipal services.[9] Although Johannesburg was divided into eleven administrative regions, these new divisions did not correspond to the areas governed by the former local authorities.[7] Later, in 2006, the number of administrative regions was consolidated, from eleven to seven (see § Regions). The reason given was to separate powers between the legislative and executive bodies of the City.[18]

Nonetheless, according to the opposition party, fraud, theft and non-payment still remained problems as of 2013.[19] In fiscal year 2011, the city's audit had R 45,796 million chalked up to fraudulent activities.[20] In 2013, the city admitted that it would be unable to collect two-thirds of the R 18 billion in outstanding billings.[21]

The first undertaking of the newly created City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, as mapped out by the "Igoli 2002" plan, 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.[22][3] The city's call centre also experienced a crisis at the same time, with staff refusing to work.[23][24]

The 2011 census divided the municipality into the following main places (unchanged from the 2001 census):[25]

Johannesburg administrative regions

The administration of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality was decentralised initially into eleven regions, named simply Region 1 to Region 11, which were largely unrelated to the 11 former apartheid administrations. The new numbered regions were subsequently consolidated, in the summer of 2006, to seven regions named Region A to Region G. The current regions are:[26][27]

• Region A - Diepsloot, Midrand and Ivory Park (previously Regions 1 and 2)
• Region B - Northcliff and parts of Sandton and Rosebank (previously Region 4 and parts of Region 3)
• Region C - Roodepoort (previously, Region 5)
• Region D - Soweto, Doornkop, Diepkloof and Meadowlands (previously Regions 6 and 10)
• Region E - Alexandra and parts of Sandton and Rosebank (previously Region 7 and parts of Region 3)
• Region F - inner city and Johannesburg South (previously Regions 8 and 9)
• Region G - Ennerdale, Orange Farm, Lenasia, Eldorado Park and Protea. (previously Region 11)

Each region is operationally responsible for the delivery of health care, housing, sports and recreation, libraries, social development, and other local community-based services, and each region has a People's Centre where any city-related transaction can be dealt with. Residents can lodge complaints, report service problems, and perform council-related business more quickly.

After the end of apartheid allowed the consideration of the entire city of Johannesburg as one without consideration of race, it was determined that the previous structure of the city was wasteful and that there was much duplication of functions. Furthermore, some suburbs were affluent with well-established amenities while neighbouring areas lacked even the most basic of services. The new regions are presently smaller than previous mega-suburbs with each being home to about 300,000 people. The idea is that smaller regions are able to stay in closer contact with local communities.

The regions are no longer seen as part of the core administration, but instead take on a role as contractors to the central government. The relationship is similar to that of the larger utilities and agencies, such as City Power, and is designed to maximise efficiency.

The closeness of the new regional administrations with their communities enables them to be more responsive to differing local needs. For instance, the needs of a high-income commercial centre such as Sandton will be very different from the needs of a low-income area such as Orange Farm.

Local Integrated Development Plans (LIDPs) are plans for the development of a specific area. A LIDP guides a region's future development. For this reason, the LIDP zones closely follow the boundaries of the regions. However, in certain cases where suburbs are cut in half by the new region boundaries, the entire suburb may be covered in only one of the regions.

LIDPs deal with city development, management and growth over a five to 10-year period. While they deal with local issues, they take an integrated approach to issues such as transportation, housing and environmental management. An overall Metropolitan IDP looks at the bigger picture and ensures that LIDPs don't conflict or lead to wasted resources. LIDPs will be revised annually so as to respond to changing conditions both locally and at a city level.

As of the August 2016 municipal elections, the municipal council consists of 270 City Councillors in Johannesburg elected by mixed-member proportional representation. The Councillors are divided into two kinds: (a) 135 Ward councillors who have been elected by first-past-the-post voting in 135 wards; and (b) 135 councillors elected from party lists (so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received).

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.

Seats in the city council after the 2016 election

  ANC

  DA

  EFF

  IFP

  AIC

  Others

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.[28] Mashaba appointed a mayoral committee consisting of the DA and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Mashaba resigned on 27 November 2019. The ANC regional chair Geoff Makhubo was elected mayor on 4 December 2019, marking the return of the ANC to the city's executive since its ousting in 2016.[29]

The following table shows the results of the 2016 election.[30][31]

In a by-election held on 24 July 2019, a ward previously held by a Democratic Alliance councillor was won by the African National Congress candidate.[32] The council was reconfigured as seen below: