Economist.com Cities Guide: Johannesburg Briefing - March 2006

News this month

Happy fiscal new year

Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s finance minister, painted a rosy picture in his tenth annual budget speech to parliament on February 15th. Thanks to economic growth of about 5%, government revenues last year were 41 billion rand ($6.8 billion) higher than expected. A similar rate of growth is anticipated for another three years, and with a strong rand, the government has further eased foreign exchange controls. For the coming fiscal year, Mr Manuel offered 19.1 billion rand in tax relief, and proposed raising spending by 106 billion rand in the years to 2009. In 2006-07 most of the 473 billion rand budget will go towards education and welfare, at 18% and 15.5% respectively. Still, the budget deficit will remain modest, at 1.5% of GDP (America’s budget deficit was 2.6% of GDP last year).

Almost half of revenues will go to provinces and municipalities. Mbhazima Shilowa, premier of Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, announced in February that the province would spend 25.7 billion rand over the next three years on general infrastructure, and target 3 billion rand specifically to 20 townships, including Sharpeville and Soweto, which are in dire need of improvements. Money will be spent on the townships' schools, electricity, water drains, libraries and taxi ranks. The province has also promised to tar all township roads by 2009.

A trial's tribulations

The prosecution of Jacob Zuma, a former deputy president charged with rape, stalled in February. His trial in Johannesburg’s High Court stopped almost as soon as it began: on the first day of proceedings, February 13th, Mr Zuma’s lawyers succeeded in pressuring Bernard Ngoepe, the presiding judge, to recuse himself. The defence team questioned Mr Ngoepe’s neutrality, as he had signed warrants authorising the search of Mr Zuma’s homes in a concurrent corruption case, scheduled to be tried later this year.

The following day, Mr Ngoepe’s replacement, Jeremiah Shongwe, withdrew as well after it emerged that his sister had a son with Mr Zuma. A third deputy declined to step in for “personal reasons”. Some commentators said that the stream of recusals have tainted the court’s credibility. Regardless, the trial has been postponed until March 6th, and the search for a judge continues.

All aboard

A scheme to build an important rail link from Johannesburg to Pretoria, some 50km north, is finally chugging forward. On February 15th the government and the international Bombela consortium, the preferred bidder for the project, signed an agreement on issues that will shape the cost of the so-called Gautrain. The exact route was chosen, and local authorities can now begin to move any utilities out of the way of the track. The national and provincial governments are expected to pay for the bulk of the project, estimated to cost about 20 billion rand.

Still, construction of the Gautrain is far from imminent. The agreement will not be finalised for another two months, and the treasury must then approve the terms of the deal. Construction—supposed to have started in January—will probably be postponed until May at the earliest. The consortium has committed to building the project within 54 months, but with such delays, the train link will probably not be completed in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, as officials had hoped.

Sophiatown triumphs

Fifty years after the apartheid government razed Sophiatown and renamed it “Triomf”, the notorious Johannesburg neighbourhood has reclaimed its old name. On February 11th Amos Masondo, Johannesburg’s mayor, presided over an emotional renaming ceremony, saying “Sophiatown is a past we dare not forget”. The neighbourhood, once famous for its music, bars, gangsters and style (some have dubbed it the Harlem of Africa), was deemed a threat to the apartheid National Party. In 1955 the government forcibly evicted Sophiatown’s 65,000 residents—the single largest population removal under racial engineering plans—to make space for blue-collar Afrikaners, and renamed the suburb Triomf to herald white supremacy. Today the neighbourhood, just west of downtown, is home to about 5,400 people.

Sophiatown was originally named after the wife of Hermann Tobiansky, a landowner who settled in the area in 1899 and eventually sold plots to Africans, coloureds and Indians. The neighbourhood, which produced jazz legends such as Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, has been portrayed in numerous plays, musicals, documentaries and feature films. One of these, “Drum”, won an award at the Fespaco African cinema festival last year.

It's ova for Nova

The bell tolled for Nova, an English-language daily, in February, less than five months after it first hit news-stands. The newspaper, published by South Africa’s tabloid king, Deon du Plessis, targeted Gauteng’s young, stylish professionals who do not usually read newspapers. Mr du Plessis hoped to replicate the success of the Daily Sun, a national tabloid he had launched in 2002, which has become the largest daily in the country. The Daily Sun's circulation grew by 400% to about 440,000 in three years; Nova failed to meet its target circulation of 50,000.

Apparently the plan to lure non-readers did not work as well for Nova as for the Daily Sun.
But Nova is hardly lonely in the graveyard of failed publications. It follows Die Wêreld, an Afrikaans Sunday paper, which closed after just three months last year, and ThisDay, a Nigerian-funded newspaper that sank in 2004.

Catch if you can

March 2006

FNB Dance umbrella

Until March 18th 2006

This annual festival, now in its 18th year, brings contemporary choreography to Johannesburg. The event presents works from local and foreign companies alike, and has launched many South African choreographers to international acclaim, including Vincent Mantsoe, Robyn Orlin and Boyzie Cekwana.

Performances take place at the Wits Theatre Complex and Constitution Hill in Braamfontein, the Dance Factory in Newtown, and the Johannesburg University Arts Centre in Auckland Park.
Further information about the festival and performance venues can be found here. Tel: +27 (0)11 482-4140/5615. Buy tickets via Computicket.

More from the Johannesburg cultural calendar