The ANC has named the mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, as the provincial local government intervention convenor for Gauteng, a move intended to stabilise failing councils ahead of the November elections.
The appointment, detailed in a report by News24, positions Morero at the forefront of the ANC’s efforts to restore basic service delivery and enforce political accountability across the province. The secretary general, Fikile Mbalula, formally communicated the decision to the provincial task team earlier this month, providing Morero with a renewed political mandate after he recently lost the regional leadership contest.
The elevation to the intervention subcommittee, which also features political veterans such as Amos Masondo and Pretty Xaba, contrasts sharply with the deteriorating state of Johannesburg’s own finances. Official oversight reports indicate severe instability, with the National Treasury recently ordering an immediate halt to a R10.3bn wage deal because the city’s adjustments budget was unfunded. Furthermore, the minister of finance, Enoch Godongwana, has highlighted the city’s non-compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act and threatened to withhold equitable share allocations, while the auditor general noted a regression to a qualified audit outcome for the core municipality due to profound governance failures.
Despite the glaring fiscal challenges in his home metro, the ruling party maintains that Morero is the ideal candidate to spearhead turnaround strategies elsewhere. The national spokesperson for the ANC, Mahlengi Bhengu, firmly rejected assertions that the mayor’s tenure in Johannesburg had been a failure. “He has worked his way up, he has worked very hard, he has turned Johannesburg around,” she told journalists, describing him as a highly intelligent and solid cadre. “The ANC has invested heavily in [Morero] because he is smart by any standard, and I think the ANC really wants to ensure his skills are put to good use.”
As the critical local government elections approach in exactly five months, Morero will immediately face the task of managing political volatility across Gauteng. The ANC has already demonstrated an aggressive interventionist posture, having recently recalled mayors in the struggling Emfuleni and Madibeng local municipalities following catastrophic service delivery failures and poor by-election results.
