Johannesburg’s broken infrastructure is making criminals rich, a report warns
Johannesburg’s crumbling infrastructure is not merely costing residents money and disrupting essential services. It is allegedly generating profits for criminal networks that have a financial interest in keeping the city broken.
A new report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) warns that infrastructure theft, water shortages and emergency repairs have created a lucrative system in which corrupt officials, contractors and criminals can benefit from municipal failure.
The report draws on a specially commissioned study, Joburglary: Assessing the Crime-Council Ecosystem in the City of Johannesburg, by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC).
The City of Johannesburg has previously acknowledged serious weaknesses in its financial management and procurement systems and announced corrective measures, including investigations into alleged financial misconduct. Its statements predate the CDE report and do not directly address its findings.
Profiting from failure
CDE describes a “crime-council ecosystem” operating across three levels.
At the top is the political capture of parts of the municipality, particularly its entities and their procurement processes, it said. Political influence over boards and senior management opens the way for tenders to be manipulated, inflated or directed towards connected businesses, the CDE noted.
At the second level are hybrid criminal networks involving officials, contractors and criminals operating around services such as electricity, water and property, said the CDE. It added that, at the third level are more direct forms of criminality, including extortion by municipal employees or contractors.
Violence and intimidation cut across all three levels, protecting corrupt interests and threatening investigators, whistleblowers, politicians and legitimate businesses, the report found.
The result, CDE said, is that deteriorating infrastructure, emergency procurement and weak enforcement create new opportunities for profit – giving those who benefit from failure a direct interest in keeping it that way.
Water as a business model
One of the starkest examples involves Johannesburg’s water system.
Joburglary describes “water mafia” syndicates in which contractors, corrupt officials and criminals may benefit from water shortages, said the CDE. It noted that pipes, pumps or treatment facilities can be sabotaged or repairs obstructed so that communities become dependent on water tankers, with the resulting emergency creating lucrative procurement opportunities.
In 2026, a court set aside Johannesburg Water’s three-year tanker tender worth at least R263 million, the CDE noted. It had been awarded to two companies run by men in their twenties who had previously shared an address.
A similar dynamic allegedly operates in the electricity network, according to the CDE, detailing examples.
City Power has disciplined electricians, security officers, team leaders and senior managers over theft and collusion with contractors. Joburglary describes a double payoff: steal and sell the copper, then win the tender to fix the damage.
In one reported scheme, police acting for a politician told guards to stand aside while a transformer was stolen. The people behind the theft then allegedly benefited from the replacement tender, while the thieves were arrested to show the case was “solved”. Senior figures allegedly place relatives in companies that buy stolen copper.
The watchdog under threat
The City’s own internal investigative unit, the Group Forensic and Investigation Services (GFIS), has investigated more than 6,000 cases involving transactions worth R35 billion. But CDE says the unit has come under sustained political pressure.
In June 2023, the City adopted a report declaring all previous corruption probes and forensic findings conducted by GFIS to be “unlawful, null, and void”, and handed its powers to the City Manager, the CDE said.
The CDE added that the 2024 assassination of a former forensic investigator – believed to have been investigating corruption involving members of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department – has had a chilling effect on internal reporting, according to interviewees.
One officer reportedly described the operating environment of GFIS investigators as one of “fear, intimidation and threat to life.”
What the City says
The City has not yet issued a statement in response to the CDE report’s specific findings.
However, in June, it appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and committed to strengthening procurement, internal controls and consequence management. It acknowledged infrastructure deterioration, maintenance backlogs and utility losses.
In July, Council approved the referral of 13 alleged financial misconduct matters, valued at approximately R4.07 billion, to its independent Disciplinary Board for preliminary investigation.
Deputy Executive Mayor Loyiso Masuku said the decision “sends a clear message that the City of Johannesburg is committed to ensuring that accountability extends beyond financial reporting and that consequence management will be pursued wherever the facts and the law require it.”
The City stressed that the referrals do not constitute a finding of guilt against any official.
Also in July, National Treasury took formal action against Johannesburg over its financial management, using powers granted by the Constitution and municipal finance legislation. The City said it would comply with Treasury's requirements but maintained that its 2026/27 budget was fully funded.
What needs to change
CDE argues that issuing better rules or asking officials to behave more ethically will not fix the problem, because the institutions responsible for enforcing those rules can themselves be manipulated or disabled.
The report calls for radical transparency in procurement, publishing information across the full life cycle of major contracts. It recommends open, merit-based appointment processes for senior positions and entity boards, and tighter controls on emergency procurement to reduce the rents available to criminal networks.
It also calls for GFIS to be given genuine independence, for investigations to lead to real consequences rather than gathering dust, and for whistleblowers to be protected – and potentially rewarded – for exposing wrongdoing.
“Organised criminal groups are adaptable,” the report warns. “Close one opportunity and they frequently seek another.”
CDE says Johannesburg needs systems that remain effective even when powerful actors have incentives to defeat them – and that the city’s November local government elections represent an opportunity to put it on a better path.
“The danger that it experiences more of the same for the next five years is immense,” the report concludes.
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