Helen Zille at BNC#8: “Johannesburg is collapsing like Rome” — a do-or-die warning for South Africa

Helen Zille delivered a hard-hitting BNC#8 address, drawing stark parallels between ancient Rome’s collapse and Johannesburg’s deepening crisis. She warns of failing infrastructure, entrenched corruption, and political fragmentation, arguing that only decisive governance and voter action can reverse decline. Her message is clear: Johannesburg stands at a do-or-die moment, and the outcome depends on the choices citizens make..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the key note speech.Alec Hogg (00:08:28 - 00:21:35)There's no long introductions, and certainly there's no introduction needed for our next speaker. The official opening of BNC#8. I'll give you Helen Zille.Helen Zille (00:32:21 - 01:00:07)Thank you very much indeed, everybody. Thank you. Alec, Jaenette, Maggie and everyone who was responsible for the wonderful arrangements and the efficiency that led up to this moment. And thank you for asking me again to open your conference. It's a great honour and privilege for me. Now, I really don't know how Piet Viljoen knew what I was going to say, but he clearly did because he applied the lessons of history to economics.Helen Zille (01:00:11 - 01:29:21)And that is what I'm going to do to politics. I agree fully with him on the central city of culture in politics as much as in economics, and it's a massively neglected aspect of both economic and political analysis. And I think in the future, we've got to pay much more attention to that. And so I also agree with many of the other things that people have said.Helen Zille (01:29:25 - 01:56:05)So in particular, he said keep up with what is happening because you've got to understand the trends and what is shaping them. And it's very easy to misread them. Not everyone gets it right. And that's why not everyone is successful. Because success belongs to people who can get closer to the reality than others, both in economics and in politics.Helen Zille (01:56:09 - 02:15:30)And I'm sure that applies particularly to investing, making the right judgments because you're closer to the reality of a situation. And especially I just want to thank Piet [Viljoen]for the statement that perseverance and resilience beats brilliance.Helen Zille (02:15:34 - 02:35:08)Last night, some young people, I had a lovely chat to them and they asked me, well, what my core bit of advice would be to them, and I was a bit long winded. I should have just said to them, perseverance and resilience beats brilliance, and that you can take into the future and take it from me, because I know from which it comes.Helen Zille (02:35:12 - 03:00:00)Now, I agree with Piet on Bitcoin as well. I just want to tell him that. But I do not agree with him on forever for ever. Investments for ever, politics forever. Anything. As I will try and say in my speech. And I was delighted to hear from the ambassador about the investment accelerator, which I will be looking into very closely.Helen Zille (03:00:04 - 03:15:16)So to take up where Piet Viljoen left off. Let me shake things up a bit here today and start talking about colonialism. Not really.Helen Zille (03:15:20 - 03:18:42)Fooled you.Helen Zille (03:18:46 - 03:50:45)Before there is a general meltdown, let me reassure you. I'm going to speak about a far more ancient colonial empire than those that elicit hysteria on what was once called Twitter. I'm going to talk about ancient Rome, just like we did, and what you can learn from it. At its peak, the Roman Empire covered roughly 5,000,000km² and ruled a quarter of the world's population.Helen Zille (03:50:49 - 04:25:16)It stretched from Britain to the Middle East, from Scandinavia to North Africa. On its coins and public monuments was it's the phrase Rome eterna eternal Rome. No one could conceive of a different reality. The phrase captured a common belief in the world's greatest empires. Rome is too big and too great to fall. What made Rome great wasn't so much its army, although that was definitely part of it.Helen Zille (04:25:19 - 05:16:22)Its foundation was the breathtaking infrastructure that made life better and inspired loyalty and pride amongst its citizens. 400,000km of road, aqueducts carrying water across continents right into accessible taps, bridges, sewers and the great Colosseum. And all this was 2000 years ago. This all came at a cost. Rome wasn't built in a day as the old cliche goes, it was built on the strongest form of social contract that only exists where the citizens buy into the system, because the state delivers the foundation of a better life.Helen Zille (05:16:26 - 05:49:22)That is the core social contract on which societies and countries succeed or fall. Rome was indeed too big to be conquered by any outside force, but as Cicero predicted, its conqueror came from within. Today, two millennia later, Rome reminds us that no city, no empire, no civilisation. And I'm sure it no company is too big to fall. In fact, they're all at their most vulnerable.Helen Zille (05:49:26 - 06:16:40)At the height of their pride and power. But that's a thesis for another day. Now, of course, Jo'burg has never claimed to be an empire or a colonial power. But the lessons remain relevant. Nevertheless, ultimately, Rome tried to do too much with too little facing external attack. Their internal politics fractured. Criminals began to infiltrate the all powerful Senate.Helen Zille (06:16:44 - 06:51:16)Once the pinnacle of visionary, if authoritarian, leadership, the infiltrators saw political power as a pathway to wealth, extracting public taxes into their own pockets. Does that sound familiar? As crime increased, the tax base shrank and the politics continued to fracture until Rome could no longer fund its promise, it could no longer defend its authority. Maintenance stopped, the taps ran dry, the sewage system blocked, the roads crumbled.Helen Zille (06:51:20 - 07:27:10)The people withdrew from the social contract and turned to regional warlords for their protection. Think of that lesson. In the end, Rome's collapse was literal. There are modern examples, too, and to this day, the lessons of Rome flash in neon lights for cities and countries, as they do for Jo'burg. Their most existential threat is infrastructure collapse, the physical infrastructure and the political infrastructure.Helen Zille (07:27:14 - 07:50:48)Jo'burg fault lines bear an uncanny resemblance to those which toppled Rome. We all know that Jo'burg is in a dire state, but I really underestimated just how bad it is. We can all see what is wrong by driving through it, but it's even more alarming when you discover why it is wrong and that it can still get worse.Helen Zille (07:51:02 - 08:32:14)Jo'burg infrastructure is on the brink of collapse. Apart from which the stuff has already collapsed. Of course, an estimated 300 billion rand is needed to fix it. And the current government, that unwieldy coalition of chaos has given up trying. Since 2010, Joburg has tripled its operational expenditure, and staff costs have ballooned by 84%, even after adjusting for inflation in the same period, capital expenditure has halved as a percentage of the budget.Helen Zille (08:32:18 - 09:08:36)The capital budget is now just 8.7 billion rand, which is 0.5% of the value of its capital assets, which is far below the recommended 8%. Instead, the money that city entities receive from residents water and electricity payments gets siphoned off some lands in the city's general account and is used to pay escalating operating costs, including the bribes and kickbacks which have now become an essential part of the ANC's business model.Helen Zille (09:08:40 - 09:44:23)In contrast, the City of Cape Town spends more on infrastructure than all three halting metros put together. Its infrastructure budget is more than 60% higher than Johannesburg's. And in fact, its infrastructure budget goes on. Planning and preparing for the future, not even fixing what went wrong in the past because they've kept up with it every year. While Cape Town invests in the future, Joburg mayors focus on how to survive the next motion of no confidence as the smaller parties switch allegiance.Helen Zille (09:44:27 - 10:14:27)And when your attention is totally focused on putting together a majority vote for the next council meeting, the strategy will be to buy votes rather than invest in roads. After Jo'burg reported more than 57,000 pipe bursts last year, it repairs just 17km of pipes annually. Cape town does 140km, and Joburg fixes less than 10% of what is urgently required.Helen Zille (10:14:31 - 10:49:08)Meanwhile, the water system is leaking itself to death. Almost half of Joburg water supply is lost to physical leaks, theft and billing errors and that is when dams are full. But of course, Joburg just cannot get its water from the full dams to its people. 60% of Joburg water infrastructure has already exceeded its designed lifespan. Durban's water system is heading for the same systemic collapse that conquered Rome and Angle and Baghdad, and Detroit.Helen Zille (10:49:12 - 11:17:29)The electricity grids infrastructure is no different. 170 billion rand is needed to fix it. I can't conceptualise a vapour trail of zeros like that. But city power has a negative bank balance of more than 16 billion. Under Chief Lado Mashaba. The entity lost 4.3 billion rand in one year. Without strong intervention, Jo'burg grid will collapse just like its water system is collapsing.Helen Zille (11:17:33 - 11:46:44)It's a ticking time bomb. 80% of Jo'burg bridges are at risk of collapse too, so careful when you drive over them. There are at least 188 hijacked buildings in Jo'burg after the 2023 muscle tone fire at iSindiso , which left 77 people dead and 700 seriously injured. There are hundreds of derelict buildings that are identified as equally high risk.Helen Zille (11:46:48 - 12:17:05)In Johannesburg, corruption is not a matter of a few bad apples in an otherwise honest system. Corruption has become the system. Corruption is the system. There are few honest people in it. Jo'burg. Corruption has gone from opportunism to syndication. And I'm not exaggerating when I say this. It is a fully fledged networked criminal. State building hijackers and drug dealers pay off the police.Helen Zille (12:17:09 - 12:52:26)Contractors break critical infrastructure just to learn new contracts to repair them. Whistleblowers are executed in broad daylight. Construction mafias extort up to 30% of the contract's value in major projects, and threaten to reduce them to rubble if they are not paid. Jo'burg balance sheet opened last year with 23.6 billion rand of unauthorised irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure before more than half was written off as irrecoverable.Helen Zille (12:52:30 - 13:23:20)That's almost three times the city's entire infrastructure budget. Down the drain, everyone heard the president tell the ANC that the only places that work in South Africa are run by the Da. Recently, the finance minister Enoch Godongwana joined in on Budget Day. He singled out Jo'burg as an example of endemic financial mismanagement, and sounded the call to get competent people to run our cities.Helen Zille (13:23:24 - 13:51:19)There is no more honest endorsement than when it comes from your arch opponents. We need to be honest about the scale of the crisis we are facing here. Too often in South Africa, we just say, chill ,moenie worry nie. ungakhathazeki. But it won't. We've seen what happens when we ignore the warning signs and then try to fix it after things are broken.Helen Zille (13:51:23 - 14:23:14)Loadshedding, state capture, the collapse of the rail network, the water crisis. I can go on. And when infrastructure collapses, anarchy is not far behind. As we learn from history, when people lose hope in the state, it's each one for themselves. The rules no longer count. Remember the insurrection centered in KwaZulu-Natal in July 2021? That's a glimpse of what systemic collapse and state failure looks like.Helen Zille (14:23:18 - 14:51:27)And it's not going to get any easier for Joburg. Her population will grow rapidly over the next three years, and our infrastructure cannot even cope with the present disposal. That 15% of South Africa's GDP actually comes from the city of gold. And if we don't reverse its decline, the effects will reverberate across South Africa's economy, causing other urban centers to fall like dominoes.Helen Zille (14:51:31 - 15:21:27)Unable to meet the demands of urbanisation and growth. But if, as is possible in the coming election, the Democratic Alliance emerges as the biggest party in every metro SA. Keep focusing on that trend because it will change the entire game in South Africa. And if you think South Africa is been a good investment of the past decade, you ain't seen nothing yet.Helen Zille (15:21:31 - 15:45:31)It'll be a fundamental game changer. If the DA can emerge as the biggest party in most of the key metros. And if we are the biggest party in all the metros in Khartoum, we will take charting and possibly be the biggest party in South Africa by 2029. So this election is a fundamental potential game changer. Now why is it broken?Helen Zille (15:45:35 - 15:50:18)Alongside the sheer scale of Jo'burg, decline?Helen Zille (15:50:22 - 16:06:28)Another thing that has really surprised and shocked me is the frequent refrain I get "Helen don't politicise Joburg collapse. Don't politicise the water crisis." And that brings me to the crux of the speech.Helen Zille (16:06:32 - 16:41:12)But we need to. What we need to answer is not just what is wrong, but why it went wrong. Politics broke Jo'burg. And because our system of local government is based on the contestation between political parties, only politics can fix Jo'burg. Jo'burg crisis is a result of the decisions of the majority of the voters over the past 35 years, and that includes all of those who didn't bother to vote.Helen Zille (16:41:16 - 16:49:28)Abstaining is a political choice, and a huge part of the problem.(16:49:32 - 17:21:31)Let's unpack that statistic. I've just said that only 43% of registered voters even bothered to vote at the last election, and because only 65% of those eligible to vote even bothered to register. Only 27% of eligible voters in Joburg actually voted. This mess is a result of 27% of eligible voters who voted, and those who decided not to vote or didn't vote for whatever reason.Helen Zille (17:21:35 - 17:54:06)Any Jo'burg who any Jo'burg who did not vote forfeits their right to complain completely. Joburg has had 11 mayors in ten years. In that time, we've had two very short lived Da led governments formed on the back of huge, complex coalitions that depended on the EFF to stay in power, as well as another vapour trail of tiny parties, each of which could bring our government down by voting against us.Helen Zille (17:54:10 - 18:11:26)I've just seen on social media that the IEC has announced that 508 parties are registered for the selection, 20 new ones since October.Helen Zille (18:11:29 - 18:35:47)Now, this is just an extraordinary statistic. And if people continue to split their votes amongst all these tiny parties, the result will be more of the same. But there's a huge incentive in South Africa to start a political party because there's no threshold to access. And if they can get just one seat, they may hold the banner of the balance of power.Helen Zille (18:36:01 - 18:48:40)Now, let me go back to this very sort of period of DA governance, because even in those short periods, 350,000 additional jobs were added overall in Joburg.Helen Zille (18:48:44 - 19:21:06)But since the DA has been out of office most of the time since 2018, Joburg has lost approximately 104,000 jobs, while at the same time Cape Town has gained 400,000 jobs. It's the politics, stupid. It's important to understand that failure is a political choice. It is what the majority of Joburg voters have chosen. Election after elections since 1994.Helen Zille (19:21:10 - 19:50:00)So when there is no water in the taps, just misquote Bill Clinton. It's the politics, stupid. Joburg politics suffers from the same corruption and fragmentation that brought about the collapse of Rome in the last local government elections. Jo'burg voters split their vote between 18 parties that got elected to the council, so the voters got what they voted for.Helen Zille (19:50:04 - 20:19:37)This election, the options are clear and simple. Voters can vote for the parties responsible for Jo'burg decline, or they can consolidate their vote behind the only party capable of reversing it. The only party that even the president admits has been proven to govern well. It is no coincidence that the Western Cape is such an outlier among South African provinces.Helen Zille (20:19:41 - 20:48:43)All of the DA's governments in Mngeni and Midvale, or oases of excellence, surrounded by a sea of failure in KZN and Gauteng, respectively. The reason Mngeni and Midvale are successful is because a majority of their voters made the choice to succeed. They made the choice to succeed. They didn't split their votes among a host of tiny parties to deliver us a hung council and an ungovernable coalition.Helen Zille (20:48:47 - 21:22:29)They delivered a DA a majority over 50% of the votes cast. And in Mngeni it was by only 42 votes that we got over 50%. So every vote counts. I'm convinced the DA can and will become the largest party in Jo'burg after the 2026 election. But we need to do more than that. If we are serious about getting Joburg working again, we need a decisive DA majority.Helen Zille (21:22:33 - 21:48:48)We cannot remove corrupt officials in Jo'burg if the ANC corruption syndicate holds a gun to our head on every major decision, because the results forced us into a coalition with them. And the same, exactly the same applies to the EFF infused ActionSA. Say, even if we emerge as the biggest party in Joburg, we may still lose the government.Helen Zille (21:49:02 - 22:15:48)If no party gets over 50%, the race is on to see who can put together a coalition that takes us over 50% and the ANC will have far more choices in coalition building than we do. They can choose the EFF, MK and the PA, which we won't. And even though we are the biggest party, we may well be forced into opposition.Helen Zille (22:16:02 - 22:44:12)UnknownTomorrow, Herman Mashaba will come here and tell you that we could have clung to power in Joburg if we were prepared to succumb to the PA's extortionist demands. Well, we weren't, because we do not want to harbor the seeds of a criminal state within our own bosom. If the only way we can get into government is through an ungovernable nine party coalition that includes some corrupt parties that see power as a path to extraction.Helen Zille (22:44:16 - 23:16:28)It is better to be in opposition. There is a very simple solution to that problem. Voters can deliver us 50% plus one. There's no other combination of parties that can bring us down if we get that. And based on our turnout, modeling a brilliant pollsters predict that it will just take 490,000 registered DA voters to go out to vote DA on both ballots.Helen Zille (23:16:32 - 23:43:44)Remember, you have two ballots in a local government election and both count. So if people do, if 190,000 people go and do that, we will give close to a million votes. And that should take us over the 50% line in the election. There are definitely at least 500,000 people of voting age who know that to get Jo'burg working requires a DA government.Helen Zille (23:43:48 - 24:12:33)Our problem is not our total number of supporters. They are out there. Our challenge is getting them to register and vote. It sounds like a no brainer, but believe me, it isn't. We run an entire election campaign costing tens of millions of rand to try to get that simple message across. Ultimately, there are only two parties that can emerge as the biggest in Joburg after this election.Helen Zille (24:12:37 - 24:41:01)One is the DA and the other is the ANC. And for every potential DA voter that votes for another small party, they are just increasing the ANC's chances of being the biggest party. That's obvious. Now we've just launched our pledges of five key pledges last Saturday in Jo'burg. If you followed us, we had a spectacular celebration and it was great fun with a lot of dancing and singing and looking at my time.Helen Zille (24:41:01 - 25:00:40)And I don't want to do too much with my time here. So let me just summarise what I say all very briefly. Our first pledge is over five years, not in year one and even not in year two. Our first pledge is to fix water and energy, and I can go into a lot more detail here, but I won't.Helen Zille (25:00:44 - 25:28:34)The second pledge is to fix the roads. Joburg roads is a mess are a massive disincentive to investment. Our third pledge is to bring back jobs to Joburg. We believe that the only thing that brings back jobs is competent governance, because then people have confidence in the future. And when people have confidence in the future, they make a choice to invest.Helen Zille (25:28:38 - 25:51:49)One of the most critical points that were made, I think, by the Ambassador Bozell, is that companies, capital and skills have a choice of any place in the world. No one has to invest in South Africa, and if we want them to do so, they have to have confidence in the future because they believe in a competent government that will deliver the goods as the foundation for the social contract.Helen Zille (25:52:03 - 26:13:09)And that is what's happened in Cape Town. And we can bring the same to Joburg with an overall majority. The fourth big pledge is law and order in public spaces. Now, obviously we have very limited powers there in local government, but we've succeeded greatly in parts of Cape Town where we focused on this, and we will bring the same to Jo'burg.Helen Zille (26:13:09 - 26:43:13)In fact, I am twisting JP Smith's arm, who's been so critical in Cape Town in getting that job right, to come to Jo'burg. So far he's agreeing to. But let's see what time brings. And fifthly, we will build a modern professional state that treats people like clients and not like nuisances. As is currently the case in Joburg.Helen Zille (26:43:17 - 27:11:18)So ladies and gentlemen, many of you will be from Jo'burg. But let me tell you not to be too depressed because there is a simple solution. Just get us 490,000 people to get registered. The registration week ends near the end of June to get registered and to come and vote DA on both ballots. And we will do it because Jo'burg is now at the point of no return.Helen Zille (27:11:22 - 27:49:23)Think I'm exaggerating? Just remember those who said the same thing about Rome. If this election does present a generational moment to turn it around, or alternatively, it could be the final nail in Jo'burg coffin. There is no middle ground for Jo'burg. It is literally do or die. So it's up to the voters to decide its fate. And I can tell you it is the politics, because politics shapes the ground in which economics lands and in which you can make predictions around the future.Helen Zille (27:49:27 - 27:58:31)So choose wisely. And don't stay at home or be away on holiday on Election day. Thank you very much.

Helen Zille at BNC#8: “Johannesburg is collapsing like Rome” — a do-or-die warning for South Africa

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