GOOD Statement by Matthew Cook ,
GOOD National Chairperson and City of Johannesburg Councillor
17 March 2025
Yet again, the government of Johannesburg has proven itself to be against its own residents while throwing money around that is desperately needed elsewhere. A whopping R335 million was allegedly wasted on inflated prices for cleaning equipment, and failed maintenance and infrastructure projects by City Power.
According to a News24 investigation, the Utility itself raised that its maintenance budget was being defrauded, with the CEO, Tshifularo Mashava receiving an internal memorandum suggesting the entity was paying for “deceptive invoices”. However, the spending was not halted and over six months, from May to October 2023, allegedly amounted to over R300 million.
Ironically, a significant portion of the supposed infrastructure funding was spent in Randburg and Roodepoort, which have had 11,000 electricity outage calls in the last week due to blackouts brought on by severe storms in the area.
The News24 investigation comes as other media are reporting the Power Utility received an unqualified audit opinion for the 2023/2024 financial year, despite findings that it failed to take reasonable steps to prevent R5-Billion irregular expenditure.
The GOOD party is disheartened but unsurprised by these developments, considering the persistence of corruption and wasteful expenditure by the municipality and its agencies. Still, the political leadership of the city has done nothing to prevent these occurrences, vindicating our decision to leave the toxic coalition last year.
As GOOD we request that the leadership of City Power initiate an extensive investigation into the extensive fraud and waste, while simultaneously conducting a strict vetting process of their supply chain.
If the entity is unable or unwilling to do so, the Mayor of Johannesburg and his municipal council must step in and place the executives on suspension while investigating their role in the mess that is the utilities finances. When it comes to the City of Johannesburg’s state of decay, enough is enough.
Media enquiries: media@forgood.org.za