Broken infrastructure is an income for politicians, warns Malema - IOL
Julius Malema closed the EFF's campaign by auditing municipal collapse across SA, arguing broken infrastructure is a deliberate tender-generating business model.
EFF President Julius Malema closed the party's 2026 Local Government campaign at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg on Saturday with a detailed audit of municipal collapse, arguing decay is not accidental but a deliberate business model designed to generate tenders.
"These are not stories we read in newspapers; these are the problems our people told us about when we knocked on their doors," he told supporters.
Malema said waste is not collected and illegal dumping piles up in villages and townships while water infrastructure is broken.
He cited Hammanskraal and Bronkhorstspruit, where residents suffered from cholera after the City of Tshwane failed to fix the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Works, and said residents still do not trust tap water years later.
He said billions was spent on a water project in Giyani, yet residents still collect water in buckets as money went to consultants and contractors.
He said communities in eThekwini, uMkhanyakude and across the Eastern Cape go for days and weeks without clean water while dams decline and no one plans for the future.
The remarks come as eThekwini confirmed on Saturday that its Washington Heights and Intake reservoirs supplying Pinetown South are empty after bulk supplier uMngeni-uThukela Water curtailed supply at Durban Heights Water Treatment Works, reducing flows through the Southern Aqueduct.
The municipality said it cannot give a timeframe for restoration, leaving areas including Klaarwater, St Wendolins and Savannah Park without consistent water for two weeks.
He said leaks in Rustenburg left homes in Tlhabane, Boitekong and Meriting with dry taps while clean water runs down streets.
In Nelson Mandela Bay, residents of Motherwell, KwaNobuhle and KwaZakhele went days without water while leaking pipes wasted water.
He said raw sewage runs in streets in Mangaung, Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu where children jump over it to get to school, and in Emfuleni raw sewage flows through Sebokeng, Sharpeville and Evaton into the Vaal River, while in Lekwa residents of Sakhile live with sewage spilling into homes.
Malema said streetlights are broken in Soweto, Kempton Park, Gugulethu and uMlazi, leaving women and children to walk in darkness where criminals rule.
In Johannesburg, roads in Soweto, Alexandra, Orange Farm and the inner city are destroyed by potholes and traffic lights are broken from Braamfontein to Randburg and Midrand.
Instead of fixing them, he said, the city puts up stop signs where traffic lights used to be.
He pointed to hijacked buildings in Hillbrow, Berea, Joubert Park and Marshalltown where syndicates collect rent, recalling 77 people who died in the Marshalltown fire in August 2023 in a City-owned building, adding the same crisis is spreading to the Durban CBD and Point and East London.
Malema said Cape Town boasts it is the best-run municipality yet has failed to formalise informal settlements in Khayelitsha, Dunoon, Philippi and Mfuleni, where people live without sanitation, electricity and tenure. In Mbombela, he said potholes in KaNyamazane, Matsulu and Msogwaba leading to schools and clinics have become dangerous.
Malema said collapse is a business model where officials and corrupt politicians pre-decide tenders, sabotage honest bidders and withhold payments unless kickbacks are paid.
If a road is built properly, he said, there will be no tender the following year to fix it. "Every burst pipe is a new tender. Every sewage spill is a new emergency contract. Every broken streetlight is another opportunity to steal. For them, broken infrastructure is not a problem. It is an income."
