Summit addresses service delivery

The Joburg Crisis Alliance (JCA) hosted a summit to look at the deterioration in service delivery and absence of effective governance in the City of Johannesburg at the Brixton Multipurpose Centre on Saturday.

The organisation is convened by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Action for Accountability, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, Defend our Democracy Movement and the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership. They have 40 organisations that are associated with them.

Neeshan Balton, the spokesperson for JCA, said the first summit was established in July last year with over 50 organisations and 200 individuals who were concerned about how the City of Johannesburg was governed and the impact on service delivery.

“At the time, it was agreed that there was a need to establish a network of concerned organisations, and a second summit was held in October 2023. Here a crisis alliance was established and a call to President

Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene to create political stability and citizen accountability to restore effective governance was made,” Balton said.

He said after the summit, a letter was written to the president and deputy president in November last year, calling on them to bring the coalition chaos in the city to an immediate end by any legislative means possible.

“This included dissolving the council, placing the municipality under administration or altering the executive model to reflect and enable proportional representation of majority parties.”

He said a third summit was convened later that month to receive a report on the call sent to the Presidency, but, unfortunately, no substantive response had been received.

At Saturday’s meeting the organisation met with political parties within the Council of the City to discuss the issues of the coalition instability; the water crisis; financial mismanagement; urban decay; collapsing infrastructure; public safety; and the disinvestment in the city.