Africa’s Richest City Is Crumbling Under Chaos and Corruption
Johannesburg was built on gold. It’s now such a mess that homeless people direct the traffic. | The continent’s richest city was built on gold, but it’s now defined by chaos, crime and corruption more than ever. It encapsulates the wider collapse of basic services across South Africa. From a broken railway network disrupting trade to archaic sanitation that triggered a recent cholera outbreak near the capital, Pretoria, parts of the country increasingly look like a failing state. ● At the heart of the dysfunction in Johannesburg is a governance crisis. Since the country’s governing national party, the African National Congress, lost control of the city in 2016, unstable coalitions have resulted in six mayors in four years. The current leader is a member of a party that holds 1% of the municipality’s 270 seats.