Diamond city shines brightest with lessons for Joburg

Kimberley, South Africa's diamond city, has always been seen as the font of modern South Africa. The city boasts a proud record of firsts, from electric streetlights to the stock exchange, drive-in bars and even aviation. Kimberley predates Johannesburg by 15 years and the money made from diamonds funded the deep-level mining that made Johannesburg the El Dorado of the modern world for a while.

Both cities depend on pumping in their drinking water from the Vaal River, with Johannesburg also getting a significant amount from the Lesotho Highlands Scheme. Despite the passage of time, Kimberley still has valuable lessons to share with Johannesburg.

In March 2018, a planned maintenance event on the single pipeline from Riverton on the Vaal went awry, causing residents to panic and revert to feral behavior when the municipality attempted to refill the reservoirs. This incident has happened multiple times, most recently in May and October 2022. Johannesburg faces its own set of problems, with a significant portion of its drinking water lost to leaks in its aging infrastructure.

Water management and preservation are likely to be key focus areas for most municipalities in upcoming administrations, particularly for Africa's world-class cities. Kimberley could teach Johannesburg an essential lesson - the importance of sustainability. Decades ago, Kimberley's leaders embarked on an altruistic project to plant lemon and olive trees on suburban verges, which provided food security for passersby.

Johannesburg boasts numerous green lungs, with a vanity to be the world's largest man-made urban forest. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the next generation of civic leaders in Johannesburg made it the world's largest free urban garden as well? Proper city management, from keeping the lights on to fixing potholes, plugging leaks, and reducing corruption, could be an unimaginable bonus for Johannesburg.