Hlazo-Webster pitches Joburg reinvention as BOSA names her mayoral candidate

By Akani Nkuna

Build One South Africa deputy leader and MP Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster has pitched a reinvention of Johannesburg, promising to move the city beyond “nostalgia”, stabilise coalitions and overhaul fragmented municipal entities if elected mayor.

The announcement of her candidacy was made in Bryanston on Thursday evening.

“I am not interested in building a Johannesburg that once existed 40 years ago, 20 years ago or even 14 years ago. You will hear other [mayoral candidates] speak about the nostalgia of Johannesburg; what Hillbrow was like in the apartheid years and rebuilding that,” she said.

“That city served its time. It was shaped by a different moment and a different agenda. It was shaped by different pressures, different possibilities. We cannot govern a future city by nostalgia. We cannot solve present failures by trying to rewind the clock. The Johannesburg of 2035 must serve the people of its time.”

Hlazo-Webster