As service delivery falls short, infrastructure crumbles and mismanagement from the Johannesburg council continues unabated, frustrated residents and several civil society organisations took to the streets to demand that Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda resign and a new leadership step in to pull the city out of its downward spiral.

Listen to this article 8 min Listen to this article 8 min 'We are tired of poor leadership. If you can't do the job, we will ask you to step down. It doesn't matter whether you are from Soweto or Sandton!"

These were the words of Neeshan Balton, executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, at a Johannesburg Crisis Alliance (JCA) protest on Saturday, 27 July 2024.

Calls for political consequences were the order of the day when frustrated Johannesburg residents and members of several civil society organisations descended on the grounds outside the City of Johannesburg council chamber to call for Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda and his mayoral committee to step down.

The protest comes after the announcement of an increase in the electricity tariff and weeks of water outages across the metro, which have left residents and civil society organisations at their wits' end.

The JCA's member organisations - the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), Action for Accountability, Defend Our Democracy and the Johannesburg Inner-City Partnership - organised the protest to address the leadership crisis facing the metro.

"Finetown was created in the 1900s. The number of people living there has increased, but service delivery...