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CITY OF Johannesburg’s Crisis Is Governance, Not Immigration
My Response to kenny kunene
By Noko Maleka
There is a dangerous laziness in blaming society’s failures on the most vulnerable among us. It is the kind of intellectual shortcut that excites crowds, trends on social media, and temporarily distracts citizens from the real rot. But it is also the kind of rhetoric that history has always judged harshly.
When Johannesburg is described as “dilapidated" because of illegal immigrants, we must pause — not because the statement is bold, but because it is profoundly misguided.
To suggest that undocumented migrants are the architects of Johannesburg’s decline is not analysis. It is scapegoating.
And I understand why such a belief may emerge. When leaders lose touch with the lived realities of ordinary residents, when they spend more time in political echo chambers than on the streets of Hillbrow, Berea, Yeoville, Park Station, and the CBD, perception begins to replace truth. But perception without data, without nuance, and without accountability is not leadership — it is populism.
Let us interrogate this narrative carefully.
If crime in Johannesburg is supposedly the handiwork of illegal immigrants, then what are we to make of South African citizens — including politicians — who have faced criminal charges? Does criminality suddenly become a matter of nationality? Were those arrested South African officials also “illegal immigrants” when they committed offences?
Crime has never been an immigration status. It is a governance failure.
Johannesburg’s challenges — hijacked buildings, failing infrastructure, deteriorating transport systems, inconsistent law enforcement — are not the result of poor migrants arriving with nothing but hope. They are the result of years of poor governance, weak enforcement of municipal by-laws, corruption, lack of urban planning, and a failure to implement sustainable economic development.
To reduce a complex metropolitan crisis into “foreign nationals did it” is either naïve or intentionally misleading.
And that is where accountability becomes unavoidable.
If one is entrusted with oversight of transport in the City of Johannesburg, the public deserves measurable improvements. Residents want safer taxi ranks. They want order at Park Station. They want regulation of routes without intimidation. They want an end to situations where metered taxi operators allegedly prevent alternative drop-offs and pickups, and where commuters who insist on choice are exposed to harassment or even mugging.
This is not hearsay. It is lived experience across the city.
Instead of meaningful reform, we have seen superficial interventions — symbolic gestures rather than structural solutions. Leadership is not about creating parallel systems that may deepen chaos. It is about fixing systems.
Johannesburg does not need rhetoric. It needs results.
Now let us address the human dimension that many conveniently ignore.
Undocumented migrants do not wake up and choose instability. They leave countries where conflict, economic collapse, political persecution, or systemic poverty have made survival impossible. Many cannot afford the bureaucratic costs of visas, permits, and legal processing. They come not because South Africa is a paradise, but because relative to where they come from, it offers a fighting chance at dignity.
To lump all undocumented migrants into one criminal bracket is not just inaccurate — it is dehumanising.
They are not an ethnic group. They are not a monolith. They are not inherently criminal. Such generalisations echo the same logic once used to paint all Black South Africans as naturally predisposed to crime. We rejected that racist narrative then. We must reject this xenophobic variation now.
Criminal elements exist in every community — South African-born and foreign-born alike. Poverty does not equal criminality. Desperation does not equal moral failure. If governance collapses, crime rises — regardless of nationality.
Blaming immigrants is politically convenient. Fixing governance is politically costly.
The real decapitation of Johannesburg is not caused by immigrants. It is caused by leadership paralysis, policy inconsistency, weak law enforcement, corruption, and failure to regulate economic spaces properly.
It is caused by allowing transport mafias to intimidate commuters.
It is caused by failing to clean and secure hijacked buildings.
It is caused by not enforcing municipal regulations consistently.
It is caused by leaders who deflect rather than deliver.
Those who placed their trust in city officials did not vote for rhetoric. They voted for solutions.
Johannesburg is a city built by migrants — internal migrants from Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, regional migrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and global migrants seeking opportunity. To pretend that migration is the root of urban dysfunction is to misunderstand the DNA of this city.
The question is not who is here.
The question is: who is governing effectively?
If leadership continues to substitute accountability with blame, then indeed Johannesburg risks losing its head — not because of immigrants, but because of intellectual dishonesty at the helm.
It is time to stop weaponising poverty.
It is time to stop exploiting frustration.
It is time to fix what is broken.
Johannesburg deserves better.
And so do its people — all of them.
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