The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. It is divided into several branches and departments in order to expedite services for the city. Zulu is the most spoken home language at 23.4% followed by English at 20.1%.
Johannesburg is a divided municipality: the poor mostly live in the southern suburbs or on the peripheries of the far north, and the middle and upper class live largely in the suburbs of the center and north. As of 2012, unemployment was near 25% and most young people were out of work. Around 20% of the municipality lives in abject poverty in informal settlements that lack proper roads, electricity, or any other kind of direct municipal service.
History Following the end of the apartheid era, in April 1991 the Central Witwatersrand Metropolitan Chamber was formed as a "people-based" negotiating forum prior to holding a democratic election and the formation of a new administration for the Johannesburg area. Following the 1993 "Local Government Transition Act", the Greater Johannesburg Negotiating Forum was created, and this forum in September 1994 reached an agreement which entailed regrouping the suburbs into new municipal structures, the metropolitan local councils (MLCs), and the overarching Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, NB Report index is here also known as the "Transitional Metropolitan Council" for the city.
The government of Johannesburg's metropolitan area evolved over a seven-year period from 1993, when no metropolitan government existed under apartheid, to the establishment in December 2000 of today's Metropolitan Municipality. An "interim phase" commenced with the 1993 Constitution. This saw the establishment at the metropolitan level of the Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) and several urban-level councils under and neighbouring the TMC. In February 1997 the final constitution replaced the interim constitution and its transitional councils with the final system of local government which defined the current category A, B and C municipalities. Today's City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality was created accordingly as a category A municipality, giving it exclusive executive and legislative power over its area.
1995 and the The new post-apartheid administration was the "Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council" (GJMC), also known as the "Transitional Metropolitan Council", created in 1995. 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), rationalised 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. 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.
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. 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.
In 1999, Johannesburg appointed a city manager to reshape the city's ailing financial situation. 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.
2000 and the new Metropolitan Municipality
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. 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. The iGoli 2002 plan went into effect and returned some sectors into "cash cows" that helped support the city in general. Although some jobs were lost, there were no mass firings, as agencies used attrition to remove excess staff. The plan took the city from near insolvency to an operating surplus of R 153 million (US$23.6 million).
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.
For the first six years the municipality 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.
2006 reorganisation 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. Although Johannesburg was divided into eleven administrative regions, these new divisions did not correspond to the areas governed by the former local authorities. Later, in 2006, the number of administrative regions was consolidated, from eleven to seven (see ). The reason given was to separate powers between the legislative and executive bodies of the City.
Nonetheless, according to the opposition party, fraud, theft and non-payment still remained problems . In fiscal year 2011, the city's audit had R 45,796 million chalked up to fraudulent activities. In 2013, the city admitted that it would be unable to collect two-thirds of the R 18 billion in outstanding billings.
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 entities. 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. The city's call centre also experienced a crisis at the same time, with staff refusing to work.
Geography The municipality covers an area of , stretching from Orange Farm in the south to Midrand in the north, and contains two big urban centres, Johannesburg and Midrand, and nine more smaller urban centres, namely Roodepoort, Diepsloot, Killarney, Melrose Arch, Randburg, Rosebank, Sandton, Soweto, and Sunninghill.
Main places The 2011 census divided the municipality into the following main places (unchanged from the 2001 census):