{"id":63525,"date":"2025-08-06T21:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63525\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T21:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:35:13","slug":"africas-richest-city-mayor-under-fire-over-1-4-billion-in-wasted-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63525\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa\u2019s richest city mayor under fire over $1.4 billion in wasted funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        Johannesburg\u2019s mayor has been given 14 days to explain how South Africa\u2019s wealthiest city intends to recover 24.4 billion rand ($1.4 billion) lost through \u201cunauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana instructed Mayor Dada Morero to present a clear plan to address the city\u2019s financial mismanagement. Failure to comply could result in Johannesburg forfeiting a portion of its funding from the central government, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-08-04\/johannesburg-mayor-asked-to-explain-1-4-billion-of-wasted-funds?srnd=homepage-africa\" id=\"c076a606-81f7-4a0b-91a9-3231aa5a7e13\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a> report.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Home to Africa\u2019s largest stock exchange and some of the continent\u2019s biggest corporations, Johannesburg is struggling with a collapse in basic services.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Business Insider Africa earlier reported that Johannesburg, often regarded as <a href=\"https:\/\/africa.businessinsider.com\/local\/lifestyle\/10-wealthiest-cities-in-africa-in-2024\/y4sn3pl#:~:text=Johannesburg%20holds%20its%20place%20as,%2Dmillionaires%2C%20and%202%20billionaires.\" id=\"1430c7fa-6b95-483d-a5cf-9d3f4b345bd7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Africa&#8217;s wealthiest city<\/a> due to its high concentration of businesses and millionaires, needs an estimated 221 billion rand ($12 billion) to fix its infrastructure challenges.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Currently, President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s administration contributes 15% of Johannesburg\u2019s 89 billion rand annual budget. The prospect of losing government funding threatens to further cripple a city already marred by pothole-ridden roads, chronic water and electricity outages, and soaring crime rates.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        This comes as Johannesburg prepares to host world leaders at a major international summit in November, putting its infrastructure challenges under global scrutiny.\n    <\/p>\n<p>        Race to plug infrastructure gaps<\/p>\n<p>\n        South Africa has intensified its infrastructure drive in recent years, aiming to undo the damage from decades of neglect and poor governance that have hollowed out the continent\u2019s most developed economy.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        In March, South Africa, in partnership with the World Bank, launched a <a href=\"https:\/\/africa.businessinsider.com\/local\/markets\/africas-richest-country-and-world-bank-unveil-dollar3-billion-plan-to-rescue-its\/hwlsm7v\" id=\"9b39cf21-fbfe-4fe5-8b21-fa4e060ae701\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$3 billion <\/a>initiative to restore essential services and improve infrastructure in eight of its largest cities.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        In June, the bank also approved a $1.5 billion loan to support South Africa\u2019s structural reforms, focusing on improving infrastructure and reviving economic growth.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johannesburg\u2019s mayor has been given 14 days to explain how South Africa\u2019s wealthiest city intends to recover 24.4&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-63525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}