{"id":260518,"date":"2025-09-28T05:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T05:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/260518\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T05:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T05:24:14","slug":"south-africa-asks-business-to-help-save-ailing-africas-wealthiest-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/260518\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa asks business to help save ailing Africa\u2019s wealthiest city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        South African business leaders say they are in talks with the government about whether they can step in to help revive Johannesburg, the country\u2019s largest and wealthiest city.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The executives, part of the Business for South Africa (B4SA) grouping, said they are assessing whether and how they can allocate resources to addressing the city&#8217;s issues, which have been plagued by deteriorating infrastructure and political instability, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-09-26\/south-africa-asks-business-to-help-rescue-ailing-johannesburg?srnd=homepage-africa\" id=\"971ad528-8fdb-41da-a24b-f99cf0b0dfcc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a>.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Home to around five million people, Johannesburg accounts for about 16% of South Africa\u2019s gross domestic product and hosts the country\u2019s main stock exchange as well as many of its biggest companies, including Discovery.\n    <\/p>\n<p>        Africa\u2019s wealthiest city under strain<\/p>\n<p>\n        Last year, Business Insider Africa reported that Johannesburg, often dubbed <a href=\"https:\/\/africa.businessinsider.com\/local\/lifestyle\/10-wealthiest-cities-in-africa-in-2024\/y4sn3pl#:~:text=Johannesburg%20holds%20its%20place%20as,%2Dmillionaires%2C%20and%202%20billionaires.\" id=\"1a75ee25-e1c2-4910-9d7f-021c3dbf8b88\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Africa&#8217;s wealthiest city<\/strong><\/a> for its concentration of businesses and millionaires, needs an estimated 221 billion rand ($12 billion) to fix its infrastructure crises.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        According to a city council review, those challenges include frequent power outages linked to distribution failures, chronic water shortages and long-delayed road and pothole repairs.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        President Cyril Ramaphosa, in March, publicly lamented the state of Johannesburg, which will host several Group of 20 meetings this year, including November\u2019s gathering of heads of state.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        B4SA is already partnering with the national government to improve logistics, stabilise electricity supply, combat crime and reduce youth unemployment.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Martin Kingston, chairman of B4SA\u2019s steering committee and of Rothschild &amp; Co.\u2019s South African unit, said a decision on whether business will formally help may come in November.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        In other national partnerships, business has seconded staff to government departments to boost expertise and capacity, while also providing some funding.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        \u201cWe are not going to become involved in the politics,\u201d Kingston said. \u201cThat we\u2019ve made that clear at all levels of government, including at national but also at a provincial level.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South African business leaders say they are in talks with the government about whether they can step in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":260519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-260518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115280260027078231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}