On Wednesday last week, the Johannesburg City Council confirmed that it would be going ahead with tariff increases that will see hard-pressed residents paying hundreds more every month for the sub-standard services and city management that have become an international embarrassment.

Water tariffs will be increased by 12.5%, sanitation by 11.0%, electricity by 8.6%, and refuse removal by 6.2%. Property rates will be increased by 3.6%. The tariffs will be introduced on 1 July.

The City justifies the increases as necessary for continued delivery of services and to deal with failing infrastructure.

For example, Thokozani Tshabalala, the senior finance manager of Johannesburg Water, said: “There are fixed costs that we incur as an entity that we need to provide a particular service regardless of what a customer consumes. We need to ensure we have got sufficient money to invest in our infrastructure. Even in low consumption or high consumption.”

The City estimates that middle-income households will pay some R667 more than they are at present. Households with more modest means would see their bills rise by about R365 a month. indigent households could see the bills rise by 13.4%, proportionately the highest increase.

The Council held “consultations” on the increases last week, as an indication of the City’s alleged commitment to transparency and accountability.

“Engaging with stakeholders is essential for building trust and understanding between the City and its customers,” said a City spokesperson.

However, the City is unlikely to win “trust” or sympathy from residents. Failing infrastructure underlines chronic mismanagement, corruption, and a generation-long failure to maintain the City’s assets. This has been central to the narrative employed by Helen Zille in her campaign for the mayorship; it is also now widely accepted in media commentary on the state of the City.

This is compounded by a huge controversy about the City’s budget, specifically steep rises in the wage bill. The National Treasury has also expressed concerns about the financial management of the City. In a letter to Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana wrote: “Taking into cognisance the current state of finances using the creditors and cash equivalents as a matrix, you have committed the city to a financial obligation that is not possible to fulfil.”

Johannesburg is South Africa’s commercial capital, but it is finding it difficult to make a compelling case to investors. Middle- and upper-income residents have increasingly been relocating from the city (whether to other, more functional, parts of the country or abroad), further undermining the City’s rates base and economic future.