SOWETAN SAYS | Out-of-sorts Gwamanda must go now

Kabelo Gwamanda had no business being Johannesburg mayor. 

Not only was his party overwhelmingly rejected by the majority of Joburg voters in the local government elections in 2021, but throughout his tenure Gwamanda looked and sounded as out of place as he too knew he was. 

Under his leadership Joburg’s decay continued to accelerate while he fumbled his way from one incoherent interview to the next, taking juvenile jabs at opponents and journalists while inspiring zero confidence that SA’s economic hub was in good hands. 

Our infrastructure continues to deteriorate with no credible plan to reverse the losses. 

The city is dark and filthy, every other street and traffic light lies in ruins. The CBD is broken. 

Water and sanitation infrastructure backlog stands at R24bn, and illegal electricity connections plunge communities into darkness and cost the city up to R10m a month, according to City Power. 

Granted, these problems did not start with Gwamanda. 

In fact, his election in May last year marked the sixth mayoral election for the city since 2021. 

However, placing a woefully incompetent public representative to lead a process to find solutions to our crises is frankly, sabotage. Even worse, the ANC knew this. 

They knew it before they elected him as their puppet figurehead but they were prepared to take the people of this city through yet another leadership experiment doomed to fail from the onset because it served political interests at the time. 

After increasing public calls from political parties and civil society bodies for Gwamanda to step down, this week Action SA announced its plans to support the ANC in a bid to remove Gwamanda. 

ANC Johannesburg regional secretary Sasabona Manganye said Gwamanda will resign by next month, after talks between the ANC, ActionSA and Al Jama-ah to which the mayor belongs. 

“There is no intention to remove Gwamanda through a vote of no confidence. He will resign as mayor [in about] August. We are still in discussions with his party,” Manganye told our sister paper Business Day on Monday. 

Either way, Gwamanda must go.

The poor decision to place him at the helm has not been without consequence. 

More importantly, the parties must elect a capable individual to lead efforts to rebuild Johannesburg.