Johannesburg Needs People Who Understand the City: Surprise Ndou Takes Its Complexities to the Global Conversation
Johannesburg is not a city that can be understood from a boardroom. It has to be lived, walked, listened to and experienced — and Surprise Ndou believes his own journey through the city has given him a particular understanding of its contradictions, pressures and possibilities.
Johannesburg is a city of extraordinary contradictions: financial capital and struggling neighbourhoods; gleaming towers and people sleeping on pavements; enormous economic opportunity alongside deep poverty; infrastructure built for one era now being asked to serve another.
It is precisely this Johannesburg that ANC branch chairperson Surprise Ndou brought into focus during an eloquent and wide-ranging conversation with Noko Maleka on Insight Afrika on 1 Africa Radio TV.
There was little about the conversation that sounded detached from the city.
Ndou spoke about Johannesburg as someone who has been born and bred in the city and has served within its political and community structures. His argument is that Johannesburg's problems cannot be properly understood by looking only at the failures that are easiest to photograph or the complaints that generate the loudest headlines.
For him, the harder question is what lies underneath those failures — and what kind of political and administrative choices can begin addressing them.
The man who knows Johannesburg
Ndou's strongest asset in the conversation was not a statistic. It was familiarity.
He understands Johannesburg from the perspective of someone who has grown up within its communities, encountered its political realities and participated in the structures responsible for responding to the city's problems.
That does not make his interpretation the only possible interpretation of Johannesburg. But it gives his contribution a distinct first-hand quality — particularly when he speaks about the relationship between municipal policy and the everyday lives of residents.
When caring for residents can look like failure
One of Ndou's most striking arguments was his contention that some of the policies criticised as evidence of municipal weakness can, from another perspective, be understood as an attempt to protect vulnerable residents.
He argued that where residents are unable to afford municipal services, the ANC's approach has been to create mechanisms that recognise those circumstances rather than simply treating inability to pay as a failure of the individual.
In his words, situations where the ANC may appear incompetent can sometimes arise because, in his view, government is attempting to care for people who cannot afford to pay.
It is a political argument, but it is also a revealing window into how Ndou says municipal governance should be understood: not merely through revenue collection and financial performance, but through the difficult balance between sustainability and the economic realities of residents.
Johannesburg's coalition question
The conversation then moved towards one of the defining political questions of Johannesburg's recent governance: coalition politics.
Ndou argued that coalition arrangements can make the implementation of programmes more difficult when political interests compete and consensus becomes harder to maintain.
His position is that Johannesburg needs political stability capable of translating plans into sustained implementation.
He said he anticipates an outright majority and argued that residents should not be distracted by isolated shortcomings at the expense of examining the broader record of government programmes.
Whether voters agree with that assessment will form part of the wider political contest ahead of the 2026 Local Government Elections.
Jack Sekwaila: where homelessness meets environmental action
Also joining the discussion was Councillor Jack Sekwaila, the MMC responsible for Environment and Infrastructure Services.
Sekwaila brought another dimension to the discussion: the connection between environmental management, homelessness and economic opportunity.
The City has previously documented Sekwaila leading service-delivery operations involving municipal entities including Johannesburg Water, City Power, Pikitup and the Johannesburg Roads Agency, with interventions covering water infrastructure, refuse collection, streetlights and roads.
In the interview, the discussion turned to programmes involving recycling and people living on the streets.
According to the ANC representatives, recycling initiatives have created opportunities for some homeless residents to participate economically, with some eventually leaving the streets.
The significance of that argument extends beyond recycling itself.
It asks whether environmental programmes can simultaneously become instruments of dignity, work creation and social reintegration.
The infrastructure dilemma
Perhaps nowhere is Johannesburg's complexity more visible than in its infrastructure.
Ndou argued that infrastructure designed around one population profile can come under severe pressure when demand increases substantially.
He pointed specifically to water-piping systems and electricity networks, arguing that infrastructure has limits and that increased demand inevitably creates additional pressure.
His comments also opened a difficult conversation about migration, population growth and the enforcement of immigration laws.
Those issues must be separated carefully. Immigration law and enforcement are principally national government responsibilities, while municipalities must manage many of the services affected by population changes.
But Ndou's argument reflects a broader urban question: how does a city continuously expand its infrastructure while its population, economy and demands change?
From Johannesburg to the global cities conversation
Ndou is set to attend the Global Cities Forum, bringing his Johannesburg experience into a wider international conversation about the future of cities.
That moment matters because the challenges Johannesburg faces are not entirely unique. Cities across the world are wrestling with infrastructure pressure, migration, inequality, housing, homelessness, economic inclusion, environmental sustainability and the question of how government can remain responsive as urban populations change.
Johannesburg's own international urban profile has increasingly placed questions of infrastructure, governance, investment and inclusive growth at the centre of the city's global conversation.
For Ndou, the value of participating in such a platform lies in taking a local understanding of Johannesburg into a space where cities can exchange ideas about solutions.
A Johannesburg conversation that goes beyond the ballot
There is an important distinction between knowing Johannesburg politically and knowing Johannesburg intimately.
Ndou's contribution to the conversation rests heavily on the latter — his experience of a city that is simultaneously powerful and vulnerable, wealthy and unequal, ambitious and under pressure.
That lived familiarity is what gives his arguments their particular character.
He does not describe Johannesburg as a collection of municipal departments.
He describes a city of people.
People who need electricity.
People who need water.
People who cannot always afford municipal bills.
People who have fallen into homelessness.
People searching for work.
People arriving in Johannesburg because they believe the city can offer them a better future.
And, ultimately, people who expect government to make the city work.
The real test is what happens next
For all the political arguments surrounding Johannesburg, the most important test remains practical: whether residents experience a city that works better in their daily lives.
That means functioning infrastructure, reliable basic services, meaningful opportunities, cleaner public spaces, effective municipal administration and interventions that recognise the dignity of vulnerable residents.
The ANC representatives have offered their explanation of what has gone wrong, what they believe has worked and what they believe Johannesburg requires going forward.
Other political parties will offer different interpretations and solutions.
For voters, the 2026 election will therefore be about more than personalities. It will be about competing ideas of what Johannesburg should become — and how that vision should be delivered.
Why Surprise Ndou's voice matters
A political representative does not become an authority on a city merely by holding a position.
But a person who has been born and bred in Johannesburg, served within its structures and spent years engaging with the communities that make up the city brings a perspective that is difficult to reproduce from a distance.
That is the foundation of Ndou's argument: Johannesburg needs people who understand not only its statistics, but its people, history, pressures and contradictions.
His forthcoming participation in the Global Cities Forum offers an opportunity to take that distinctly Johannesburg perspective into a broader conversation about the future of cities.
LISTEN: SURPRISE NDOU IN CONVERSATION
Hear the full conversation with Surprise Ndou and experience his own delivery, arguments and perspective on the future of Johannesburg.
Insight Afrika · Noko Maleka · 1 Africa Radio TV
The views expressed regarding ANC governance, coalition politics, immigration, municipal affordability and service delivery are attributed to Surprise Ndou and the ANC representatives interviewed. They represent their political interpretation and should not be read as independent findings by InsightJoziNews.org.
The City of Johannesburg has previously documented Jack Sekwaila's involvement in visible service-delivery operations involving Johannesburg Water, City Power, Pikitup and the Johannesburg Roads Agency.
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