Corruption and organised crime have become intertwined with the running of Johannesburg, creating a system in which some people benefit from and actively engineer the city’s failure to maintain infrastructure and provide its residents with services.

That is the warning from the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) in its latest report, Time for Action – Corruption in Joburg, released as part of its Johannesburg Matters: Fixing South Africa’s Growth Engine series.

The report says corruption cannot be approached as merely a matter of office bearers abusing their positions for personal gain, but has become linked to syndicates involving politicians, crooked businesses, and criminal groups operating around the municipal administration, notably through the awarding of contracts and appointments.

The report frames this as a “crime-council ecosystem”, where political and criminal interests intersect with the machinery of local government.

The report draws on research commissioned by CDE from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), which examines networks operating around municipal procurement and services including electricity, water, and property.

According to the research, political influence over municipal entities and senior appointments can be used to facilitate the manipulation of tenders. It also identifies links between corrupt insiders and criminal groups involved in infrastructure theft, sabotage, and building hijacking.

Violence and intimidation were also being used against investigators, whistleblowers, politicians, and legitimate businesses.

The CDE report says the problem has been compounded by instability in the metropolitan government and by the weakening of mechanisms intended to promote accountability.

A key concern for CDE is the decline of the City’s own investigative capacity.

The Group Forensic and Investigation Services (GFIS), which was established in 2016, investigated more than 6 000 cases involving transactions worth R35 billion. But it came under political pressure, and in 2023 the City adopted a report declaring previous GFIS corruption investigations and forensic findings “unlawful, null, and void”.

Its investigative powers were subsequently transferred to the City Manager.

The report notes that the assassination of a forensic investigator, Zenzele Sithole, has contributed to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among those reporting wrongdoing internally. Exposing criminality can be lethal for those trying to do the right thing.

CDE argues that Johannesburg needs more than another anti-corruption strategy or additional rules. The report argues that procurement information must be made publicly available throughout the life of major contracts, including details of bids, beneficial ownership, payments, contract changes, and proof of delivery.

It also calls for greater transparency in senior appointments, stronger protection for investigators and whistleblowers, targeted action against organised criminal networks, and greater use of disciplinary, civil, and criminal sanctions.

Raising the imperative of professionalising a compromised administration, CDE says that the city needs “open, merit-based processes for senior positions and municipal entity boards, with published criteria, professional assessment, and recorded reasons for appointments”.

Investigations, the report emphasised, needed to produce tangible consequences: “Those do not always have to be criminal: contractual claims, claims for unjust enrichment, and other civil remedies can be pursued without law enforcement, and need be proved only on a balance of probabilities, not beyond a reasonable doubt. A forensic report gathering dust in an office is not an anti-corruption achievement." The report argues that reforms should be designed to withstand attempts by vested interests to undermine them, with greater reliance on systems that are automatic, transparent, and independently verifiable.

CDE also wants the criminal justice system to prioritise serious and repeat offenders and for the City to track cases after they are referred to law-enforcement agencies.

Getting a handle on crime and corruption within the City’s administrative apparatus is, CDE concludes, an existential matter and one that its residents need to bear in mind.

“The city desperately needs leaders committed to dealing with corruption and criminality in and around the administration and its politics. The danger that it experiences more of the same for the next five years is immense. The November elections are an opportunity to put Johannesburg on a better path. Voters should seize it.”