Finance minister Enoch Godongwana announced this month that the National Treasury is developing an "intensive intervention" to help rescue Johannesburg. The Treasury intends to work with the City for three years, irrespective of which party emerges from the local government elections on 4 November.

The National Treasury's intervention to rescue Johannesburg is further evidence of the depth of the crisis facing South Africa's most important city.

Last month, the Centre for Development and Enterprise's (CDE's) research showed that Johannesburg is caught in a dangerous financial spiral: it spends money it does not collect, infrastructure investment has collapsed, and unpaid bills owed to the City have risen from about R15-billion a decade ago to nearly R72-billion.

The Treasury's interest in the City's financial future is therefore welcome.

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But money, financial restructuring and better plans will not be enough. There is a fundamental problem that no intervention from the Finance Minister, however well designed or well funded, can solve on its own: somebody in the City administration still has to be capable of getting things done.

The fact is that Johannesburg will not be fixed unless its next government puts capable people in charge of the institutions responsible for running the city. That is the central argument of Kickstarting Delivery - Joburg's Mission Critical Jobs, the third report in CDE's Johannesburg Matters series.

The City's management crisis is severe.

Since 2016 Johannesburg has had nine mayors and eight coalition administrations. At the top of municipal...