When Roesdien Hendricks warns that his community in the heart of Johannesburg is on the verge of exploding due to illegal gold diggers ousting police, stripping power cables and diverting water supplies, he exaggerates. not.
as “Zama ZamasuYou are about to blow up a historic golden reef that has been at the center of nearly 140 years of exploitation that has made the South African metropolis one of the largest in Africa. A suburb of Riverley.
“Literally we are sitting on gold…but we are sitting on a time bomb waiting to explode,” said the 50-year-old activist.
Hendricks added that the police were “useless” in stopping a turf war between rival miners that a shootout had opened the night. “We’re told, ‘We can’t come because we’re afraid of violence in your area.'”
Riverlea’s troubles symbolize a growing sense of lawlessness and infrastructure collapse in South Africa’s largest city, Serious rolling blackout Decline under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress.
Riverley lies just south of where gold was first discovered in Johannesburg in 1886, leading to the rise of a brash, proud commercial city that attracts immigrants from all over Africa.
Today, it is home to the continent’s largest banks, advanced data centers and commercial activity, driving nearly one-fifth of South Africa’s gross domestic product. However, this industrial hub has been plagued by political turmoil and local government financial crises.
The ANC regained control of the city in a dubious backroom deal this year after the opposition-led coalition was in trouble. Analysts say the ANC is now the power behind mayors plucked from smaller parties in a deal aimed less at restoring local pride than at breaking up lucrative public contracts. It’s like someone chewed up the place and spat it out,” Hendricks said.
The corruption has gotten so bad that Johannesburg’s Episcopal bishop Stephen Moreo last week used a Palm Sunday procession in Johannesburg’s historic center to show that Desmond Tutu once covered the streets outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I mourned the garbage. He served as Dean.
“I have never seen anything like this, especially in a world-class African city,” he said. added.
The next day, a city official came to clean up and was embarrassed. Elsewhere, however, thieves innocently cut down traffic light poles with angle grinders and sell them for scrap.
“Our business is being sabotaged by the syndicate . “Zama Zamasu They are also digging mining tunnels under the roads of our gold city, causing sinkholes and road collapses. ”
Urban devastation is repeated across South Africa’s struggling economy, which has not kept up with population growth. “Johannesburg has declined, but that’s the state of many South African cities,” said Ruhona Munguni, co-founder of think tank Livonia Circle.
The deterioration extends beyond South Africa’s post-apartheid urban divisions to the wealthy suburbs sprawling north of Johannesburg, which suffer from water shortages and sanitation shortages.
Cape TownIt is South Africa’s second largest city, run by the main opposition party, the Democratic League.
Johannesburg resident Koketso Moeti is finding bargains at an ever-growing number of moving sales in one of the signs of an escape to the Cape. “For example, she has two free pianos. The most ridiculous thing,” she said.
“Between water and electricity [outages]it was bad for people,” Moeti added.
Even simple roadworks to restore power and water supplies are left unfinished by networked contractors, she says. “This city is full of craters… It doesn’t make sense for one company to fix them and another to fill the holes.”
Those who stay are increasingly relying on private operators to replace local government services.
The Pothole Patrol is sponsored by insurance company Discovery. The city’s road authority is asking businesses to connect nearby traffic lights to backup generators that had to be installed in buildings to survive the blackouts imposed by Eskom’s power monopoly.
“It stretches north for everyone to see. No traffic lights, no curbs, no street lights… Driving at night in Johannesburg is terrifying,” said author and city guide. said Gerald Garner of
“If you want to fix Johannesburg, you have to fix its heart,” Garner said. Johannesburg is an important transportation route and a treasure trove of city history, from the Victorian Gold Rush to the rise of democracy. Tens of thousands of South Africans use the inner city.”
This means growing anger over Johannesburg’s decline will be a key factor in next year’s national elections, with the ANC in danger of losing the ruling party majority it has held since 1994.
Without victory in Gauteng, the country’s most populous state, which includes Johannesburg, it will be difficult for the liberation movement to win nationwide.
Hendrix’s wife, Rwyda, said she wanted to leave Riverley and Gauteng for Cape Town. But she has to stay to take care of her sick mother. Her mother is dependent on another victim of the city’s collapse: an oxygen machine.
“If there is cable theft, the power can go out for three to four days,” she said. “She looks fine to you and me, but she’s in pain in her heart.”
