With growing evidence that the City of Johannesburg is running out of money, there is a curious lack of interest by both the province of Gauteng and the national government to intervene. This appears to be mirrored by the attitude of the national ANC, which seems to be in some kind of disastrous stalemate with the Johannesburg ANC region.

On an almost daily basis, along with rubbish in the streets, the evidence is piling up that the City of Johannesburg is running out of money.

As Daily Maverick's Anna Cox reported on Monday, 28 June, the Johannesburg Metro Police Department had to stop using their vehicles at the end of June because there was no money to buy petrol.

The week before that, on 23 June, she explained how Johannesburg Transport MMC Kenny Kunene had confirmed that the Johannesburg Roads Agency fleet had also run out of money for fuel. A grand total of zero Joburg residents noticed the difference in the number of potholes fixed.

And as Bloomberg reported on 1 July, the City has cash to cover costs for just five days, while it has a funding gap of R2.1-billion.

Meanwhile the City appears to be pressing ahead with its plans to implement the "politically facilitated agreement" with the South African Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu). This will entail spending R10-billion that the City does not have.

As the Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, has explained in his correspondence to the City, it simply cannot afford to do this.

More jarringly, the City also wants...