Helen Zille promises Joburg turnaround as DA mayoral candidate: 'Fire in my belly to stop the rot'

702's Bongani Bingwa chats to Helen Zille.

Listen to their conversation in the audio clip below:

"Fire in my belly to stop the rot..."

- Helen Zille, Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate - DA

Zille says she’s ready to return to her roots and rescue Johannesburg after being named the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for the City. 

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Zille describes her return to the City of Gold as 'nostalgic but sad', noting the visible decline.

She promises to work with experts to conduct a thorough audit of the city’s bloated administration and misdirected budget, criticising Johannesburg's low maintenance spending and high operational costs.

"I'm going to bring in some real experts to help me analyse where the problems are."

- Helen Zille, Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate - DA

Zille is especially critical of what she calls a 'jobs-for-cadres' culture in the city, saying the administration has become an 'employment bureau' for politically connected individuals. 

"Over the past 30 years, it has become an employment bureau for every ANC cadre and their auntie and uncle and their nephew and niece that you can imagine, and huge amounts going into all kinds of fluff."

- Helen Zille, Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate - DA

She plans to slash waste by eliminating duplicated functions between departments and municipal entities. 

Her focus, she says, would be on redirecting funds toward infrastructure maintenance and capital investment, particularly in neglected public services.

Responding to criticism that the DA only serves affluent suburbs, Zille dismisses the claim as political spin, insisting the party spends significantly more in poor communities. 

Highlighting Cape Town’s record under her leadership, she states that the majority of its infrastructure budget went to townships, including the first-ever electrification of informal settlements. 

"It is insane to say that we deliver more in the leafy suburbs than in townships; it is exactly the opposite way around."  

- Helen Zille, Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate - DA

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Scroll up to listen to the full conversation.