In a big win for the City of Ekurhuleni, the municipality has come second in the country and first in Gauteng Province in the 2024 Governance Performance Index (GPI) for Metropolitan Municipalities.
This shows how the city is dedicated to doing things well, leading, and giving top-quality services. It makes Ekurhuleni stand out as one of the best big cities in South Africa.
Even though the council has had some tough times since the 2016 local government elections, the leaders in Ekurhuleni have shown they can handle challenges well. They’ve done this by being creative in how they manage things and making sure they are accountable to the people they serve.
Dr Imogen Mashazi, who runs the city, said, “We’re really proud of this achievement. It shows how committed we are to doing things right and making sure our city keeps getting better.”
The GPI 2024, which was carefully done by Good Governance Africa, looks at different things to see how well municipalities are doing. Ekurhuleni did especially well in Leadership & Management, which shows how good their leaders are and how well they handle tough situations.
“We want to thank everyone in the community, our hard-working staff, and all the people who help us make Ekurhuleni a great place to live and work,” said Dr Mashazi. “We promise to keep doing our best to make our city even better.”
South Africa has eight big cities: Buffalo City, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Mangaung, and Nelson Mandela Bay. These cities are where 40% of South Africa’s people live, showing how important they are.
Since the 2021 local government elections, many of these big cities have had problems with their councils not agreeing on things. This has especially been in Gauteng, where no one party has had enough votes to run the councils alone.
The GPI report isn’t all bad news, though. It shows that cities like Cape Town and Ekurhuleni are doing pretty well despite the problems.
Ekurhuleni’s second place ranking is especially impressive because, like the other cities in Gauteng, it’s had problems with its council since the 2016 elections.
According to the GPI, one reason Ekurhuleni did better than expected is that between 2016 and 2021, the city was run by a group of parties working together. This is rare in South Africa, but it helped Ekurhuleni. Unfortunately, after the 2021 elections, the leaders in Ekurhuleni decided not to work together like before. This might have affected how well the city did in the 2022-23 AGSA MFMA Report.
Even though they stopped working together, the progress Ekurhuleni made from 2016 to 2021 shows that when parties work together, they can make things better. The report says if parties agree on some basic things and work together on important issues, it can make cities run better.