No laughs at Dada Morero’s Joburg circus

There’s nothing like a sexist throwaway line to lend a jarring note to political theatre of the absurd. That, at least, was the high-brow culmination of last week’s state of the city debate in Joburg.

If you’d had the fortitude to sit through the full four hours, you’d have seen the ultimate dénouement. 

There was mayor Dada Morero, responding to ActionSA’s Lebo Modukanene: “You did very well and you looked very beautiful on screen,” he said, in patronising praise of her own “state of the city address”. 

“I was saying to Margaret [Arnold, presumably, the city’s finance MMC]: Don’t be jealous; you don’t have the cleavage.”

Oh, how we laughed.

It was a cheap stunt; a desperate search for laughs. But it was entirely in keeping with an event heavy in artifice, right from when Morero rocked up for the debate in a Joburg City Zoo overall.

There was also the performative moment when, in the middle of his state of the city address, he fired off an email to President Cyril Ramaphosa containing his turnaround plan for Joburg – projected onto a screen behind him while the cameras rolled. He then clapped enthusiastically at his own ingenuity. Queue sycophantic cheering. 

And don’t forget the standing ovation at the end of an address that made up in mediocrity what it lacked in substance.

Like similar addresses – think Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address, or Panyaza Lesufi’s provincial equivalent – Morero cherry-picked successes by the authorities while making an absolute meal of those vanishingly few instances where he actually intends doing something. 

True, he flagged the issues facing the city: crime, grime, infrastructural collapse, nonworking traffic lights, potholes, water issues blah blah fishpaste. But he entirely glossed over the cause of all this dysfunction: systemic failures that are rooted in maladministration.

Don’t expect that to change. One of Morero’s grand plans in his turnaround strategy is to “rotate” members of his mayoral committee (MMCs) and senior departmental managers. Oh, don’t be misled into thinking he’s actually going to fire any of the incompetents, mind; this is simply a “rotation”, not a “reshuffle”, he said.

Instead, he is hanging grimly onto the same bunch of officials he appointed when he stepped into the revolving mayoral door last year. And that is largely the same bunch that served the abject failure Kabelo Gwamanda before him. And “investment rainmaker” Thapelo Amad before him.

With very few exceptions, all remain in the exact same positions. Just look around the metro to see how good a job they’ve done.

In a city where government has the continuity of a strobe light, Morero is now adding further excitement into the mix by, say, moving the community development MMC into the finance portfolio. What could possibly go wrong?

He is, at least, implicitly admitting what we’ve known all along: these political principals are mere cyphers; empty suits that contribute nothing of value and are therefore infinitely interchangeable.

Because, if he had bothered to find any MMCs that epitomised excellence, he’d be sure to keep them right where they are. And he’d fire those who were underperforming instead of moving the dead wood to portfolios where they can, fingers crossed, do less harm.

Going down like a bomb

Presumably because he is aware that his chosen few will still prove unable to turn things around or manage their departments efficiently, he is also putting in place a “bomb squad” to fast-track solutions to city problems.

Only, this isn’t related to the presidential work stream, or the service delivery war room. Actually, it is just another layer of operational management that is likely to do little other than stifle any real action as turf wars break out between administrators and an ad-hoc council with no statutory authority to exercise command.

It obviously doesn’t help that this “squad” is to be headed up by Snuki Zikalala, a man most famous for wrecking the SABC’s news division. Twice.

In his first stint, Zikalala presided over a failed restructuring process. In his second, he burnt through resources by setting up 13 news bureaus around the world – you know, in London, Washington … Jamaica. (The plan was later quietly shelved.)

Zikalala is, of course, eminently qualified for the position; he’s an ANC ideologue whose claim to fame at the public broadcaster was blacklisting commentators who were critical of the ANC administration. In other words, he is yet another cadre deployed to fix the train smash created by cadre deployment. Talk about turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear.

The former broadcasting executive will apparently be helped along by former senior officials who know the ropes. Which is more positive – though you have to question why the city let them go in the first place if they were so good at what they do. In any case, picture fat consultancy fees loading – for services that salaried staff members should be providing.

Of course, the bomb squad would be entirely superfluous if city administrators – and political heads – were doing what they were paid to do.

Which brings us to the other weapons in Morero’s arsenal. 

Among his innovative solutions has been to “declare” crime a state of disaster, just as he has “declared” a war on potholes, illegal connections, land invasions, illegal mining, illegal dumping and undocumented migrants. He is also monitoring cash flow, reducing the cost of doing business, and setting up an economic workstream in the presidential task team to bring GDP growth to 3% (now why didn’t the president think of that?). Oh, and selling the monstrous debtors’ book that the city has allowed to accumulate.

But don’t be fooled by any suggestion that this is innovative leadership. None of these interventions would be necessary if the city had simply chosen competence over cadres in the first place.

The stakes are high, needless to say, since this is the most important city in South Africa. 

As Morero pointed out, Joburg accounts for 44% of Gauteng’s R2.37-trillion GDP, and 15% of the national GDP of R6.97-trillion. It needs more than the likes of Snuki and MMCs who have proved themselves to be woefully inadequate to the task.

Yet, despite any protestations to the contrary, Morero’s three-ring circus continues apace. The clowns remain in charge.

_{Top image: Joburg mayor Dada Morero. Picture: Gallo Images/Sharon Seretlo.}