Joburg in turmoil

The mayor of Johannesburg has quit after months of political infighting, and South Africa’s biggest city is struggling to balance its budget. 

Kabelo Gwamanda’s resignation will be effective once the speaker of the city council has called a meeting to elect a new mayor, the city said in a statement Tuesday forwarded by the Democratic Alliance, an opposition party within the council. 

Financial and political turmoil in recent years has beset the city of about 5 million people that’s had eight mayors since 2019 due to constantly shifting coalitions.

While the African National Congress and Economic Freedom fighters are the largest parties in the ruling coalition with 119 seats between them, they installed Gwamanda — a mayor from the Al-Jama-ah party that has just three seats. There are 270 councillors in total.

Gwamanda has faced calls for his resignation from opposition parties and civil society groups as services have deteriorated.

Potholes are unattended for months, power supply in some areas is erratic and a swath of the city had no water for as long as 11 days earlier this year.

The city, billed as Africa’s richest because of its concentration of businesses and millionaires, needs 221 billion rand ($12.1 billion) to catch up on maintenance and overdue upgrades across its collapsing road, power and water networks, documents seen by Bloomberg show.