Executive mayor in the City of Johannesburg Dada Morero has acknowledged that the city is in a “crisis”, with “extreme actions” required to mitigate this.

Delivering the State of the City Address on May 7, he said the city was facing complex challenges, ranging from financial instability to decaying infrastructure and a service delivery backlog, which required collaboration and collective solutions.

One of these is the city’s turnaround plan, which Morero revealed on the day and presented electronically to President Cyril Ramaphosa for consideration.

Delivering a turnaround plan was the first part of the Presidential Support Package extended to the city.

Pivotal to this plan would be the establishment of a “bomb squad”, expected to be operational by June, and tasked with removing constraints that impact “creating the Joburg we want to see”, Morero said.

Moreover, he said the city was immediately adding an economic workstream within the package to help it reach the goal of an average of 3% GDP growth over five years.

It is also declaring a State of Disaster for crime and lawlessness from July.

Morero said it was also declaring war on illegal connections, illegal mining operations and dumping, as well as undocumented migrants.

Morero called on residents to contribute to these improvement efforts by refraining from dumping illegally, littering, vandalising public infrastructure and hijacking buildings. He also emphasised the need to comply with bylaws.

He also informed that there would be rotation of members of the mayoral committee to strengthen areas in which there were weaknesses, starting from July.

The city is also seeking to become financially sustainable, with its position currently “fragile”, and would be pursuing improvements in revenue collection as part of this, as well as daily monitoring of the city’s cash flow.

Morero highlighted several other key focus areas for the city, including implementing an energy sustainability strategy, which aimed to ensure delivery of conventional power and integrate this with new energy generation and storage.

He emphasised that electrification of informal settlements remained a top priority, with close to R300-million allocated to connecting these areas to the grid, and with this also supporting the city’s energy transition programme.

He also said the city was cognisant of the high electricity tariffs residents were paying, and that industrial users, who were considerable employers, would be provided with relief tariff options.

The city would also pursue investing in underserved areas and address the deep infrastructure backlogs here, aiming to make these economically viable places. Morero revealed that about R3-billion had been allocated in the medium term to eight of the most underserved areas.

There is also revitalisation of the inner city, by restoring the Johannesburg inner core through inner city development.

It is also seeking to build reliance and security of key infrastructure through projects with Joburg Water, the Johannesburg Roads Agency and Pikitup.

More support will also be provided to the township economy.

Morero mentioned that Johannesburg hosting major events, such as the G20 Summit later this year, provided an opportunity to showcase the city’s industrial pipelines and opportunities for international partners.