“Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push — in just the right place — it can be tipped,” wrote Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point.
Gladwell’s theory that little things can make a difference is being put into remarkable practice in a history-steeped East Rand town in Gauteng, where a handful of businesspeople are working with communities and local authorities to sustainably change the face of their long-neglected surroundings. They are creating waves that are reaching as far as Nelson Mandela Bay.
Springs was going the same way as most towns across Gauteng and South Africa: neglected, filthy, a haven for drug users and dealers, with garbage littering the streets. An old war memorial at an entrance to the town had literally become a dump site and was being used as a toilet. In one corner lay animal carcasses, slaughtered and skinned with the leftovers discarded there. A fountain structure nearby was littered with used needles, and faeces bubbled to the top of the green, murky water which collected there with every downpour.
The centrepiece of the war memorial, erected in 1965 to honour fallen South African soldiers from both world wars, had been a large dome, symbolising the helmets worn by those who died for their country. Springs residents recall that the dome was once covered in copper, now long stolen.
In the space of a few years, businesses in Springs have rallied together to transform the old gold mining town, taking charge of their own fate, after the abandonment and neglect for which the municipal sphere of government has become notorious.
Begun in 2020, the restoration of the war memorial is now complete. The recipe for this success is surprisingly simple and effective. Less talk, more work and, crucially, no politics. Local businesspeople began working together, roping in taxi owners, community organisations and councillors. The results are impressive.
“It was literally a rubbish dump,” says businessman Dirk Human of the war memorial. “It was being used as an ablution block and we had people sitting in the park, which was also a dump, actually taking drugs. We had businesses in the town dumping their weekly refuse here because it wasn’t being collected.”
Human, who manages JR Mackays Diesel & Motor Engineering, drove the restoration. “We at the business were becoming infested with rats. So we sat down and said: ‘We’re going to drive it, we’re going to get permission and then we're going to see if we can fund it.’ And then we just moved from strength to strength.”
The war memorial has been completely restored, with the enthusiastic approval of the Ekurhuleni metro. The task was undertaken by businesses and the community. Young and old came together and began cleaning up the site. A total of R100,000 was raised and the cost of restoration was R600,000. Human’s company paid the difference and has taken on the job of maintaining the site. Another local business, Prosafe, erected electric fencing around the site with cameras, to ensure that it is not entered or vandalised. The memorial site is closed to the public, opening only on the last Sunday of every month until noon.
The effect of this one initiative has had a snowball effect on the town, says Human.
“There was a lot of unemployment, a lot of dumping. When we noticed who the businesses were that were dumping, we went to them and spoke to them about it, and then the council also got involved. So did the Ekurhuleni metro police and local communities, and we started cleaning up the town. It’s not perfect, but the difference is visible.”
Memorials across the town were cleaned up, with everything funded and driven by local businesses.
Around 2018, businessman Tony da Cruz, who owns Prosafe and is as passionate as Human about reigniting the community spirit in the town, approached the council to gather together the large military assets around Springs and surrounding towns. They included everything from artillery to tanks and even warplanes. They were in parks, school grounds and museums elsewhere. Working with local businesses, he began restoring all the items collected and modifying them to make them accessible for children and teenagers wanting to learn about the country’s military history. There are also mining displays: Springs was once one of the richest gold mining areas in the world.
The Ekurhuleni metro provided a piece of land to erect a mining and military museum. The resultant display stands on a well-kept open plot, on one of the main roads heading into Springs. Da Cruz hopes to turn it into a tourist destination, with a pub being refurbished into an eatery for museum visitors.
“We fix it, make it look pretty, let kids learn about it, and display it in a high-profile spot. It’s not so hard. As much as politicians always think there’s some sort of ulterior motive, here, there isn’t, it is for the community,” he says.
The pub and the open-air museum sit on municipal land — the metro has provided it to the community, rent-free, in exchange for its upkeep and development. There is now also an indoor section that is rapidly taking shape.
Residents such as Da Cruz and Human have been central to motivating businesses to contribute to improving the state of Springs.
“Generally, I had a pretty good life,” says Da Cruz. “A good middle-upper class upbringing, and enough money, I’ve travelled the world. When I got a bit older, I noticed the dysfunction in our government, local government especially. It’s a mess. Unskilled, uneducated, and just generally people not qualified for the work. So it was bound to fail. We saw that, but I was always trying to help them where I could.”
After 30 years in business in Springs, Da Cruz says he has the networks to initiate projects and to ensure that they work and are sustainable. The museum is one of many projects he is working on in the town. The work is not for profit and is bankrolled by the businesses participating.
“I was an engineer, and I worked in a big corporate before I started my own business, but I appreciated everything that I learnt,” Da Cruz recalls. “The one military tank, for example, that we collected, I grew up playing in it on a Sunday [in a public park]. We’d go to the park, we’d go to that tank, and my parents would sit on a bench, and I’d be in and out.”
This tank is now restored and stands at the museum, which also includes a World War 2 German howitzer that once stood in Joubert Park in Joburg and a Mirage 3 fighter jet brought on site by Delmas Crane Hire, which provides services to the museum free of charge.
Da Cruz and two fellow businessmen, Alan Pollastrini and Errol Britz, run what is known as the Springs Mine & Military Museum.
It was the military connection which drew in another activist, Roy Andersen, a former president of the JSE. He was inspired by the momentum developed in Springs in such a short time, and he has begun doing the groundwork for a similar initiative in Randburg, Joburg.
For 53 years Andersen was part of the reserve in the South African Defence Force and then the South African National Defence Force. He retired three years ago but remains active in preserving military artefacts. He works closely with the South African National Museum of Military History in Saxonwold, where he chairs the building and development trust that supports the museum.
Andersen’s link to the Springs project was through Britz, with whom he had served in the army. “He told me about the events in Springs and I attended the unveiling of the revamped memorial. Since then I have been helping arrange exhibits for their museum, but more than that I was inspired by their community spirit,” he says.
A few months ago, Andersen was driving through the Randburg CBD — a jarring experience for most. “The litter, the quality of the pavements ... it was filthy, ridden with crime, far worse than many cities I have visited on the continent. I live just 2km away, so I decided to do something about it,” he says.
He contacted the local ward councillor, Lucinda Harman, and took her to Springs to show her the work being done to revitalise that town. This was the spark to ignite what Andersen hopes will be a war on the degradation and neglect in the Randburg CBD.
He tells the FM that work has already started. St Stithians College has taken over the four main intersections surrounding the school, including maintaining the pavements and seeing to repair and upkeep of the traffic lights. Discussions are under way among hotels in the area to begin reviving their immediate surroundings.
This week a large meeting was scheduled to take place at the Mercure Hotel. The immediate request to the 42 businesses which agreed to participate was that they adopt the pavement or island nearest to them to effect repairs and maintenance. Crucially though, this has to be ongoing. Andersen also aims to draw in taxi owners and drivers to assist with the maintenance and upkeep of the area.
“We are starting small and we hope from here, as it did in Springs, it will begin snowballing,” he tells the FM.
“It goes beyond cutting grass. It must include repairing cornerstones and paving, repainting the fronts of businesses, upgrading signage. These small things have already made a difference where they have been done. We need this spark, and we know it will ignite things. We can’t be complacent and sit back and think it’s going to improve on its own,” he says.
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What Andersen emphasises is that the initiatives are not politically motivated, echoing Human and Da Cruz in Springs. “There is no political element to this. Our motive is on the one hand to protect the heritage of our country, and on the other to look after our communities and surroundings. If we don’t do it, who will?”
Many businesses may be hesitant to commit their time and money to taking over services that in theory they already pay for through their municipal rates and taxes.
“That is a fair point,” admits Andersen. “Obviously, in a perfect world, if you pay your rates and taxes you would expect a pristine city or town. But sadly that is not the reality. So we have to work with the city council to help them to ensure that things get done.
“If we sit back and do nothing, things simply won’t improve. It is really in our interest to do something about it and also build that sense of community, have people start pulling together towards a common purpose,” he says.
The Springs story is undoubtedly a positive one, but stories like this cannot alone deal with the threat to South African business, economic growth and stability — from service delivery protests and factory closures to intermittent water and power supplies, failing municipalities have a profound impact.
In 2021, dairy group Clover shut its cheese factory in Lichtenburg, which falls under the Ditsobotla local municipality, due to a collapse of service delivery in the town. The FM visited the town two years later and the situation had deteriorated even further.
Major chicken producer Astral Foods had to deal with enormous problems at its Standerton plant and ended up basically providing its own services.
Last week, an Eastern Cape community triumphed in the courts to compel the AB Xuma local municipality in the Chris Hani district to fulfil its constitutional obligation to complete an access road to connect Nogqala village to the towns of Ngcobo and Ugie. Construction of the bridge started in 2021, yet there is little to show for it, despite the municipality spending R10m on the project. The high court in Mthatha found in favour of the community, and the landmark judgment could spur other communities deprived of crucial services to approach the courts to force municipalities to begin taking service delivery seriously.
Velenkosini Hlabisa was appointed co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister last year. In his eight months in office, he has become familiar with the crises faced by communities across South Africa due to municipal failures. In the past eight months Hlabisa, who is also the leader of the IFP, has visited municipalities across the country, finding a mixed bag in terms of performance.
“We came up with a turnaround plan which has categorised municipalities” he tells the FM. “There are 35 municipalities that are dysfunctional or nearly completely dysfunctional. They include the 10 worst-performing municipalities. Then we came up with the turnaround plan, which has a short-term plan, a medium-term goal and a long-term goal.”
He won’t identify the 35 municipalities, but the FM understands that the list includes Mangaung in the Free State and, unsurprisingly, Joburg.
The department spent the last three months of 2024 diagnosing the problems in these municipalities. In the coming months, it will be intervening directly, providing support from financial staff to engineers. The long-term leg of the project will run from June this year for 12 months. During this period, the minister hopes to stabilise these 35 municipalities and produce a detailed report to submit to the president.
Hlabisa tells the FM that one of the biggest constraints for municipalities across the country is the nonpayment of services — the main culprits are government departments and businesses, with some households also in deep arrears.
It’s not right for individuals to provide services to themselves, which must be provided by the municipality.
“We are hopeful that the government departments pay what is due to municipalities, businesspeople pay what is due, citizens who are working, who want services to be rendered, pay for what they want. In the municipalities where there are shortages in terms of manpower, we will be intervening in providing such manpower.
“There should be no reason why municipalities would not be functional if they are receiving money and receiving support in terms of human personnel, as a short-term goal,” he says.
Hlabisa says for a country to go forward, every citizen should participate in its upkeep.
However, he adds: “It’s not right for individuals to provide services to themselves, which must be provided by the municipality. But if out of 100 businesspeople, only 10 are willing to pay rates, to pay for services, and 90 are unable or not willing to pay, definitely the municipality is not going to be able to deliver services.
“The problem is the majority are not acting responsibly. This is a value chain. If we can all respond accordingly ... I’m not exonerating municipalities that are failing to deliver services, but it is a vicious cycle.”
The numbers Hlabisa cites are stark — he urges businesses to pay for services. “There are many people who are working, but they do not want to pay anything to the government. They want free water. They want free electricity. They want clean streets. But they don’t want to pay, even working people in households.”
It is a long-standing problem that Hlabisa’s department is now grappling with. Another problem in Gauteng metros, he adds, has been the instability in leadership due to coalitions.
Aside from the interventions from Hlabisa’s department, working with the presidency through Operation Vulindlela, which also includes business co-operation, a white paper is being produced to update local government legislation and bring it in line with conditions faced by communities today.
It seeks to update the 1998 white paper on local government in crucial areas such as funding models. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year, with cabinet approval early next year.
Harman, who was asked to assist with the revitalisation of Randburg, is the DA ward councillor for the area. While Andersen is adamant that the initiative is not political, liaison with the council is essential.
Harman pours cold water on allegations that businesses are failing to pay for services, saying these are simply excuses used by municipalities when they are questioned about their poor performance. “The area we are in brings in a huge amount of revenue for the city, but there is very little put back into the community. I think that is defamatory, coming from the national government. It is simply an excuse so the city bigwigs can keep looting.”
Another problem is that businesses, in her ward and others, complain constantly of inflated bills due to Joburg’s chaotic systems. One business recently received a water bill for R250,000, when its average usage stood at R34,000. “Businesses pay their bills and still get cut off because of the mess in the billing system,” she says.
She describes the Randburg CBD as a haven for drug dealers and human trafficking rings, littered with hijacked buildings. It was once a business hub but has turned into a slum. When she visited Springs, she was inspired by the work being done by the community and is pushing to replicate it in her ward, but is concerned that the City of Joburg would resist such initiatives.
“Springs has a different municipality, they can get a lot more right. Here in Joburg, councillors are blocked at every turn, we face constant, blatant sabotage.” This is especially the case for DA councillors, she says. “It is like they want us to fail.”
In recent weeks, however, residents have scored an important victory: a community organisation was allowed to take over the running of the Blairgowrie public swimming pool.
She hopes Andersen’s initiative to bring businesses together will be the start of reshaping and reimagining Randburg.
“If we can solve Randburg’s problems under this political climate, we can do anything ... we are calling on those seeking solutions to stay and fight ... stop whingeing and let’s start making things happen,” she says.
And what of initiatives such as those beginning to spread from the experience of towns such as Springs? Andersen tells the FM that organisations in Nelson Mandela Bay, Potchefstroom and Vereeniging have reached out, interested in replicating the initiative in their towns.
It is early days, but the former mining town of Springs may just have started something — a nonpolitical, grassroots movement to build the country from the bottom up, rather than waiting for the national government.
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