Treading where others have not, gritty DA City of Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille’s campaign in the run-up to the November local government polls, has exposed how the ANC-led metro municipal leadership has failed residents in providing basic services.
In taking her fight to the Public Protector (PP), Zille has this week lodged a formal complaint with the PP in terms of Section 182 of the constitution - on behalf of Eldorado Park, Kliptown, Nancefield, Claremont (Johannesburg) and Alexandra residents – short-changed by the system.
“This complaint is submitted with regards to the continuing failure of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, including its municipal entities and the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements, to provide basic municipal services in a progressive and effective manner and the non-implementation of the remedial action directed in July 2021 joint report of the Public Protector and the South African Human Rights Commission concerning Alexandra township,” said Zille in an affidavit.
Criss-crossing several parts of Johannesburg, Zille has braved a strong stench from raw sewerage flowing from Soweto’s derelict Nancefield sewer pump into Klipspruit River, visited the condemned Maxwell Court residential building in Claremont and an engaged with residents at the Helen Joseph Women’s Hostel in Alexandra last Friday, which has turned into a pit of squalor.
Areas visited by Zille during her campaign trail, have pointed to the City of Johannesburg inability to take appropriate action in serving communities.
The Nancefield sewer pump station is a Johannesburg water installation situated at the corner of Stockwell Avenue and Boundary Road in Soweto.
In November 2023, an oversight inspection recorded that the sewer pumping station behind the Eldorado Park Cemetery was in a state of disrepair, causing raw sewage to spill into the Klipspruit River – flowing into the Klip River, forming part of the integrated Vaal River System, from which drinking water is drawn.
In January 2026, a major pipe burst occurred in Boundary Road, Kliptown, affecting Eldorado Park’s extensions 7 and 9, Klipspruit and Klipspruit West.
Said Zille: “In March 2026, elderly residents of the Nancefield Retirement Village, reported a sewer spillage of approximately a month’s duration from a municipal manhole outside the facility, with wastewater flowing into the village and into residents’ toilets – with repeated reports to authorities yielding no result.
“These local failures occur against a documented systematic collapse of the city’s wastewater function.”
Municipal owned Maxwell Court is a residential block of about 60 units – where there has been a prolonged absence of water, inoperative water pumps and mould on the walls.
“If it is so that the City of Johannesburg has condemned its own rental stock, after years of documented non-maintenance, with tenants in occupation, that conduct implicates the city’s obligation as an organ of state and as a landlord under Section 26 of the constitution,” said Zille.
The Helen Joseph Women’s Hostel in Alexandra is another site of squalor.
This, despite R17.5 having been spent in the refurbishment of the hostel, with visible work not commensurate with the reported expenditure.
On shaky ground in the upcoming elections due to grappling with a myriad of challenges – owing creditors billions of rand and recently being hit with a National Treasury freeze on funding, due to financial mismanagement – Johannesburg has a gross national product estimated at R2.31 trillion to R2.47 trillion.
Several setbacks, which have included financial collapse, water and power crisis; waste mismanagement, inner city decay, infrastructure and illegal mining, the City of Johannesburg, governed by Executive Mayor Dada Morero (ANC) and a coalition of EFF, ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance, is set to see the biggest battle for Jozi.
Leading experts the Mail \& Guardian spoke to were unanimous in describing the Zille campaign as making an impact in the run-up to the local government elections.