John Matisonn: What Zille has already learnt about Joburg corruption. Deep but fixable.

Key topics:Zille alleges sabotage and mafia-style corruption driving Johannesburg’s failuresWater, rates and fire services plagued by cronyism and rigged systemsShe warns Joburg faces state capture, needing a decade-long clean-up.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 at 5:30am 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..By John Matisonn.DA mayoral candidate Helen Zille thinks she’s figured out how a lot of Johannesburg works, but she’s looking for more. After weeks walking the streets of Johannesburg with her now familiar floppy hat and notebook, then testing her findings with advisers and DA councillors who have served on Johannesburg’s executive in the past, she remains startled at its scale.She’s found significant sabotage of infrastructure by people connected to the city. For example, a great deal of Jo’burg’s water crisis is in areas where there is water. Water shortages around Brixton occur because the city owes the Brixton Reservoir and Tower a paltry R2million, yet pays R18million for the replacement water tankers..Read more:.Helen Zille and the vision to transform Johannesburg’s future: Sindile Vabaza.That, says Zille, means a payoff. It tells you the City of Johannesburg prioritises tankers, which benefit the water tanker mafia. Backhanders to politicians sabotage infrastructure to service cronies.After another water breakdown, a DA councillor followed the water pipe till she found a valve switched off. She switched it on.The notorious Johannesburg rates problem exists because the city lacks proper software. “Good, password controlled software would stop rate scams. Instead, law firms are hired to collect the debt.” Some are honest. Others find high paying ratepayers whose payments are up to date. Their electricity is cut off anyway, and debt collectors demand a repayment. If you’re a shopping mall that cannot be without water, you sometimes pay anyway. The law firm gets 15% - for a bill paid twice.“You can’t put lipstick on that pig,” Zille said. “Good password protected software will stop this.” “One Johannesburg fire station looks like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Ceilings falling, birds nesting, manure, no paint. Every slat of its blinds broken, the staff demoralised. The staff bought their own microwave, fridge and heater. The phone hadn’t worked for months… They were told to rewrite the specifications for a new fire truck repeatedly to suit one supplier that only makes garbage trucks. When it arrived, it had clearly been adapted from a garbage truck. It had water tanks, but nowhere for firefighters to sit. The cheap and unsuitable vehicle had to be modified, removing one of the water tanks to accommodate the firefighters.But the fire station has no working phone. A fire 500 metres away was put out by residents with buckets. It was quicker than going to rustle up the fire department. Elsewhere in the city five fire stations share one truck. Fire stations are dilapidated, and staff have to buy their own microwaves and other basic appliances.One early conclusion concerns the differences she has found from Cape Town corruption, which was easier to tackle because she became mayor there after only a few years of decline.The difference shows in the character of corruption and how to tackle it. Corruption in Cape Town was far more limited. Based on academic reading, in Cape Town she endorsed the definition that “corruption equals a monopoly of discretion minus accountability. C=M-A.”For example, if someone is head of both procurement and monitoring that person has a monopoly of discretion and no accountability. When she found Cape Town’s “Mr 10%”, he turned out to be head of procurement and compliance. Once fired, the problem was solved. QED.After 30 years, Jo’burg is quite different. It's the difference between corruption and State Capture.After decades of misrule, Zille’s formula for Jo’burg’s corruption is C + C + C = C + C + C.That’s centralisation of power plus cronyism plus corruption. These three create the conditions. The consequence is corruption plus criminality plus capture, as it emerged nationally in the Zuma years. Capture requires control of the whole staff chain, from the clerk at the bottom to the executive at the top. There are always honest people at different levels, but they can be isolated and intimidated. If one chooses to be a whistle-blower, they are killed, not just to stop them giving evidence, but as a warning to others.This was how Babita Deokaran at Thembisa Hospital and Arnand Swart over a Transnet contract were targeted for assassination. It is the syndication of corruption. A whole range of connected people who feed off each other, so oversight does not work.Zille found honest people in the system who hate what they see, and are waiting for a safe route to doing their jobs properly, which needs to come from the top.Zille puts it into a Venn diagram: a circle each for the ANC, the ANC inside the state, and the ANC in business. The shade in the centre, where all three circles overlap, is where the controllers of the syndicate are found.For the ANC, the quid pro quo is party funds. The chain starts at the entry level. A nurse or clerk is asked to provide the specifications for a product they need. They recommend there be rules for emergency supplies, to prepare the ground to bypass competitive tenders.They must be paid. Middle level managers are paid to turn a blind eye or collude, and the executive with signing powers must get his or her cut.Now you have a syndicate. The controllers of the syndicate register multiple companies, using the names of family members or cronies, to survive a desktop examination that makes the company seem substantial, with offshoots wrongly assumed to demonstrate a depth of expertise in the field..Read more:.State Capture reloaded: Top cops, ministers, and the myth of a clean government - Ivo Vegter.Everything is set up so an emergency order for high volumes, sometimes for a simple R4 component they order at R151 each. Why does the rates department not have suitable software for its debtors? Because you can’t rig it if it’s good and password protected. In Cape Town, Zille found that a custom software password protected prevents malfeasance.Property holdings offer rich pickings. The municipality was moved out of the civic centre. It’s rented at low fees to cronies who sublet at fat fees. The city then rents expensive alternative accommodation. Travelling for the first time with bodyguards, she remains determined. She says it will take ten years to fix. Asked if that means a second run in 2031, she said “if I keep my marbles, who knows about 2031.” The women in her family seem to stay fit into their nineties, but that’s out of her hands. “I’ve got to keep my marbles to make that decision.”

John Matisonn: What Zille has already learnt about Joburg corruption. Deep but fixable.

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