Bongani Baloyi outlines MKP’s plan to restore Johannesburg’s basic services

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) mayoral candidate, Bongani Baloyi, promises to deliver a working Johannesburg to the residents.

1. What would be your top three priorities for restoring basic services?

Water, electricity and the basics of a functioning city: Amanzi. Ugesi. Umsebenzi. Isithunzi Manje. If given the mandate, MKP pledges three priorities.

First, stabilise water and sewer networks by fixing leaks, pump stations and failing infrastructure before building anything new. Second, reduce load reduction by modernising the grid and adding local generation.

Third, restore the core functions of roads, waste collection and street lighting by collapsing the City’s fragmented entities and returning their functions to core departments with clear accountability.

Stabilising Jozi is the minimum entry fee for everything else.

2. How will you keep ward councillors accessible and accountable?

Councillors will be required to report publicly on a fixed schedule. MKP pledges quarterly ward-level accountability reports covering faults logged, faults resolved and capital spend in each ward.

Residents will be able to see what their councillor promised and what was delivered.

3. What is your plan for the electricity and water infrastructure backlogs?

On electricity, MKP pledges a five-pillar energy mix. The pillars are mass rooftop solar starting in Soweto, solar on public buildings, grid modernisation with smart metering, battery storage and peaking capacity, and partnerships with independent power producers.

Soweto rooftop solar alone has an estimated potential of around 1.2 GW. A dedicated Energy Delivery Unit would run the programme, with bulk procurement and blended financing used to lower costs.

On water, we would prioritise maintenance backlogs and leak reduction, with the same public reporting on progress.

4. What is your strategy for managing informal settlements and growing demand for housing and services?

Growth must be planned, not left to chance. MKP pledges to designate all townships as priority economic zones, with incentives and support for manufacturing and agriculture to create opportunities where people already live.

We would prioritise the provision of services and the formalisation of existing settlements, release well-located land for housing, and enforce the law against illegal land invasions and unsafe structures.

Growth without adequate services only deepens existing backlogs, which is why service delivery planning must come before expansion.

5. How would you attract investment while addressing deteriorating infrastructure?

Investors respond to stability first. If elected, we would stabilise the basics, then reclaim the Johannesburg CBD and run it as a managed construction site that redefines the city’s skyline.

We would also open structured partnerships with business, including chambers such as AmCham, around energy, property and logistics, with faster approvals and predictable rules.

Investment will follow a city that keeps its promises, so we would publish delivery milestones that businesses can hold us to.

Caxton Local Media invited Johannesburg mayoral candidates, as confirmed at the time of publication, to participate in a question-and-answer interview, giving voters a chance to learn more about their plans, priorities, and hopes for the city ahead of the Local Government Elections on November 4. 

The views expressed in these questionnaires are those of the respective candidates and do not represent the views of Caxton Local Media or any of its publications.

The answers are intended solely to provide voters with information about the candidates contesting the election and to help them make informed choices at the polls.