South Africa’s commercial capital is effectively bankrupt, according to a Genesis Analytics study commissioned by BLSA and Business for South Africa. Consultant Lael Bethlehem warned Thursday that Johannesburg may not survive until November’s municipal elections without a provincial administrator being appointed — a politically toxic outcome for the ANC. Finance Minister Godongwana has set a Friday deadline for Mayor Dada Morero to explain how the city addresses its financial shortcomings or forfeit R8 billion in state funding. The numbers are damning: operating expenditure nearly doubled since 2010 while capital investment fell 13%, property values have dropped 20% in real terms, and criminal syndicates are implicated in the dysfunction. With Johannesburg generating 16% of the national GDP, this is no longer a local crisis.
By Antony Sguazzin
While such a move would be difficult for the African National Congress before crucial local elections in November, it may have little choice but to act, Lael Bethlehem, a partner at Genesis Analytics, said during the presentation of a study commissioned by Business Leadership South Africa and Business For South Africa.
“The City of Johannesburg is essentially bankrupt,” Bethlehem said Thursday. “We may have a situation where they may not be able to limp on until November and the government will have to implement” a takeover plan, she said.
Her presentation came a day before a Friday deadline set by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana for the city to explain how it will address financial shortcomings or lose 8 billion rand ($486 million) in annual state funding, or about a 10th of its budget, a letter seen by Bloomberg showed. Mayor Dada Morero will respond next week, his spokeswoman, Khathu Mulaudzi, said.
Run by an ANC-led alliance, Johannesburg has descended deeper into dysfunction in recent months and is expected to be among the fiercest battlegrounds in the Nov. 4 municipal vote. The Democratic Alliance, a partner of the ANC in the national coalition government, has nominated former party leader and Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate.
The city owes hundreds of millions of dollars to state-owned power and water utilities and has been threatened with power cuts. It has also run out of fuel for vehicles used to provide essential services, such as road repairs. Godongwana, in an earlier warning letter, instructed Morero to cancel what he called an “illegal” wage deal to pay city workers an additional 10.3 billion rand over the next two years.
Even so, Johannesburg plans to increase its workforce by about 1,700 people this financial year to more than 40,000, a review of its budget documents by Bloomberg showed.
The deterioration in Johannesburg’s finances has alarmed business and the government because the city of 4.8 million people is the economic hub of South Africa, contributing about 16% of gross domestic product. A financial collapse would reverberate across the national economy, impacting growth and tax revenue.
“The state of the city has become a matter of national importance,” BLSA Chief Executive Officer Busi Mavuso said as she introduced the presentation. Afterward, she said it had left her “with a profound sense of disbelief and sadness. How did we get here?”
Bethlehem’s analysis showed that despite spending more per resident than South Africa’s seven other major metropolitan areas, Johannesburg lags almost all of them on most measures of financial health and performance.
Johannesburg has 8.5 employees for every 1,000 inhabitants, compared with a national metropolitan average of 6.4. It loses 45% of its water to leaks and theft compared with about a quarter in Cape Town. Almost a third of its power is stolen or wasted versus 11% in Cape Town and it’s adding housing units at less than half the rate of its coastal rival.
Over the past decade, the city has added 108,000 jobs while its working-age population has grown by 850,000. That’s a third of the number added in Cape Town, which has had lower overall population growth. Operating expenditure has almost doubled since 2010, while capital investment has fallen 13%.
“The City of Johannesburg has a large budget. Lots of money is being spent, it is just being spent wrongly,” Bethlehem said. “You cannot run a city by spending all of your income on operating expenditure and so little on capital.”
The city’s decline has also weighed on property values. Adjusted for inflation, property prices in Johannesburg have fallen by a fifth since 2010, compared with a 34% rise in Cape Town.
The options for the government should the city deteriorate further are twofold and one may lead to the other.
Godongwana is currently using a section of the Municipal Finance Act to potentially withdraw funding. If he carries out his threat, the finances of the city are likely to deteriorate further, possibly necessitating the appointment of an administrator by the provincial government.
Read more:
Fixing the city will require new leadership and action against graft, which is one of the causes of why there’s little to show for the billions of rand being spent, Bethlehem said.
“Johannesburg is in a deep, systemic and escalating crisis,” she said. “Addressing the problems of Johannesburg will involve a reckoning with criminal syndicates.”
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.
Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.
Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.
If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.
Leave a Reply