{
  "id": 18326309,
  "title": "How to defeat criminals who profit from Joburg’s decline",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/05/how-to-defeat-criminals-who-profit-from-joburgs-decline",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-11-05T15:34:51.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Daily Maverick",
    "slug": "daily-maverick",
    "url": "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-11-05-how-to-defeat-criminals-who-profit-from-joburgs-decline/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Johannesburg is grappling with a complex issue that combines weak administration, poor maintenance, and criminal activity. This has led to the emergence of a \"crime-council ecosystem\" where political, business, and criminal interests intersect and profit from the city's decline. The researchers have identified three overlapping levels to this ecosystem: political capture, hybrid criminal networks, and direct forms of criminality.\n\nThe political capture level involves the influence of politicians on municipal entities and procurement processes. Hybrid criminal networks consist of officials, contractors, and criminals working together in areas like electricity, water, and property. The direct criminality level encompasses extortion by municipal employees or contractors, violence, and intimidation.\n\nThis situation has evolved over time due to persistent institutional instability, including changes in leadership, weakened transparency mechanisms, and fragmented financial reporting. The City's own watchdog, GFIS, was initially set up to address corruption but has faced political pushback and intimidation, leading to a chilling effect on internal reporting.\n\nTo address this issue, a new Johannesburg administration must focus on creating automatic, transparent, and externally verifiable mechanisms to deter corruption. Simply issuing better rules, demanding compliance, or asking officials to behave ethically is not enough, as the institutions responsible for enforcing these rules can be manipulated or disabled. A change in approach is necessary, making it harder to conceal wrongdoing, easier to detect, and more likely to result in consequences for those engaging in corrupt activities.",
  "summary": "A ‘crime-council ecosystem’ that incorporates political, corporate and criminal interests is fuelling Johannesburg’s municipal decline through procurement manipulation and sabotaged infrastructure. To address it, there is a need for radical procurement transparency, protected independent oversight, merit-based political appointments and automatic enforcement mechanisms.",
  "key_points": [
    "Johannesburg faces crime-council ecosystem with political, business, and criminal interests.",
    "Three overlapping levels: political capture, hybrid criminal networks, direct criminality.",
    "Address issue with automatic, transparent, and verifiable mechanisms to deter corruption."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}