By Johnathan Paoli
ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont has called on Johannesburg residents to reclaim the hope they once felt under Herman Mashaba’s leadership, saying that the city was working before and could work again.
Speaking in Kliptown, Soweto, at the second event of the Mashaba Legacy Tour, Beaumont praised the former mayor’s record in turning the city around and accused successive administrations of overseeing its collapse.
“It took Herman Mashaba less than a year to do what no government had done before, to electrify Kliptown, home of the Freedom Charter. The people of Joburg need the hope that comes from knowing their city was working before and can work again,” he said.
Standing before a crowd gathered near the site where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955, Beaumont said Johannesburg had become trapped in a “revolving door” of failed leadership.
Since Mashaba’s departure, he argued, seven mayors from the ANC, DA and smaller coalition parties such as Al Jama-ah had taken office without any meaningful progress on service delivery.
He told residents that Mashaba’s administration had brought tangible improvements to communities long ignored by the city.
He recalled that when Mashaba became mayor in 2016, he discovered a 2011 court order compelling the city to provide electricity to Kliptown Extension 11, a judgment that the ANC-led administration had ignored for years.
Within twelve months, Mashaba had delivered power to the community, an achievement Beaumont described as symbolic of a government that listened to ordinary people.
Beaumont shared the story of an elderly Kliptown resident who invited Mashaba into her home after the lights were switched on.
She had bought an electric kettle and wanted to share a cup of tea with the man who had electrified her neighbourhood.
Turning to housing, Beaumont said Mashaba inherited a backlog of more than 300,000 applications, while the city was building barely 2,000 houses a year.
Thousands of new RDP houses were built, title deeds were issued, serviced stands were allocated, and informal settlements received electricity and sanitation for the first time.
Beaumont said these projects were financed in part by cancelling a corrupt contract that had been illegally awarded to a businessman who took the money but failed to deliver any work.
He described the Inner City Revitalisation Project as one of Mashaba’s most visionary initiatives; a plan to restore abandoned buildings and create affordable rental housing for working families who earned too much for RDP homes but too little to afford bank loans.
“The Inner City project was about fairness. It recognised that the people who keep this city running deserve to live closer to where they work,” Beaumont said.
He went on to highlight improvements in basic services, from electricity and water infrastructure to roads and clinics.
During Mashaba’s administration, power outages were reduced, thousands of kilometres of roads were resurfaced, and the city achieved its highest-ever resident satisfaction rate of 74 percent.
He noted that Mashaba redirected billions from luxury spending and international travel toward critical service delivery infrastructure, while attracting R17 billion in new investment to Johannesburg in a single financial year.
On public health, Beaumont said 26 clinics had their operating hours extended, saving hundreds of lives through after-hours care.
Mashaba also established five city-run substance abuse treatment centres and introduced mobile clinics to reach informal settlements.
In public safety, the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department was expanded by 1,500 officers, while a dedicated K9 Narcotics Unit was formed to tackle drug-related crime.
Beaumont also hailed Mashaba’s anti-corruption campaign as one of the most effective in local government history.
He said that during Mashaba’s tenure, more than 6,000 cases of corruption were investigated, covering transactions worth over R35 billion, leading to hundreds of arrests.
Additionally, over 6,000 outsourced security guards and cleaners were insourced, ensuring they received fair wages and that the city took direct responsibility for its own infrastructure.
Beaumont concluded by saying that the Mashaba Legacy Tour was not only about celebrating the past but also about restoring confidence in the city’s future.
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