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Yesterday, the ANC-PA-EFF coalition of doom in Johannesburg was meant to give the City’s 2026/27 medium-term budget speech.

Instead, they gave us a fairytale – one that could only be produced by the ANC’s unique approach to mathematics.

Just weeks ago, the ANC’s own Finance Minister wrote to Mayor Dada Morero, effectively warning that the City of Johannesburg is bankrupt.

Yet yesterday, Johannesburg’s new MMC for Finance, Loyiso Masuku, gave both the Finance Minister and the residents of Joburg the middle finger – proudly announcing an operating budget that is 10% larger than last year’s version, which had already proved unaffordable.

It’s not so much that the ANC thinks money grows on trees. Rather, it thinks money can simply be squeezed from the pockets of residents – even in the middle of a devastating cost-of-living crisis.

Residents are now expected to pay 12.5% more for water, 11% more for sanitation, 8.6% more for electricity and 6.2% more for refuse collection.

And what do they get in return?

Water cuts. Power outages. Sewage running down their streets.

Tariff increases are painful in any city, but in Johannesburg they are especially indefensible because residents are being asked to pay more into a collapsing system that is not investing enough in the infrastructure needed to fix basic services.

The R8 billion increase in the 2025/26 budget goes entirely into the City’s operating budget – the part of the budget that pays for things like salaries and day-to-day consumption. In plain terms, the money gets eaten up.

By contrast, the capital budget – the money that should be invested in roads, water pipes, substations, traffic lights and other infrastructure that delivers long-term value to residents - has not been increased.

The real purpose of this fairytale budget is to absorb a R10.3 billion “politically facilitated agreement”. A “politically facilitated agreement” is code for a politically motivated feeding scheme designed to buy loyalty.

Or, in the words of the ANC’s own Finance Minister, an “illegally signed agreement” – because it was funded by money that exists only in the ANC’s fairytale fantasy of municipal budgeting.

None of this appears to bother MMC Masuku, who was herself recently inserted into a newly created Deputy Mayor position – with all the associated costs – to manage a factional power struggle following the ANC’s recent split regional conference in Johannesburg.

There is plenty of money for her. Just as there is money for 12 of the 13 heads of Joburg’s municipal entities to earn above the stipulated maximum. Most notably, the CEO of the Johannesburg Property Company who received a tidy 60% increase this year to reach a salary of R5.5 million.

This is obviously all bad news for the residents of Joburg.

But there is one piece of good news: National Treasury appears to have had enough of this nonsense too.

This budget is unfunded, unlawful and flies in the face of Treasury’s scathing letter to the City dated 23 April.

The DA will not allow this corrupt administration to flush away the last of Johannesburg’s precious and fast-depleting resources.

We will not allow the ANC to abuse ratepayers in order to buy political loyalty and bail out its own financial recklessness.

We will reject this fairytale budget. And on 04 November this year, the voters of Johannesburg have the power to reject it too, and to vote out the coalition of doom which tabled it.

The DA will call on the relevant authorities to hold those responsible for this Budget to account for their obvious breaches of the Municipal Finance Management Act.

Issued by Helen Zille - DA Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate