Africa’s Richest City Needs $12 Billion to Fix Infrastructure
- Johannesburg needs 154 billion rand alone for roads network
- City has had eight mayors since 2019 amid political turmoil
Johannesburg, billed as Africa’s richest city because of its concentration of businesses and millionaires, needs 221 billion rand ($12 billion) to catch up on maintenance and overdue upgrades across its collapsing road, power and water networks.
The city council discussed the shortfall late last month and detailed it in documents seen by Bloomberg. It comes at a time when regular power outages — the result of distribution-network breakdowns — hit large swathes of Johannesburg. Officials leave potholes unattended for months and parts of the city had no water for as long as 11 days in March.