Mafia taking over South Africa’s richest city

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02-12-2025
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Johannesburg is showing clear signs that the construction mafia is tightening its grip on the city, and that escalating intimidation, threats, and violence against councillors have made parts of the metro effectively ungovernable.

Speaking about her resignation, which takes effect on 30 November, Former ward 102 councillor Lucinda Harman said she is shocked that the media has never caught on to how many councillors are being murdered.

She described a disturbing pattern of attending council memorial sessions after memorial sessions, and it has become a significant problem.

According to Harman, the city is so poorly managed, and governance has deteriorated so sharply that serious threats to councillors’ lives are ignored.

“Everything just falls on deaf ears, nobody’s prepared to take action because everything’s just collapsing around,” she said.

Harman explained that after months of intimidation, dysfunction, and ongoing threats, her mental and physical health declined dramatically. 

“It became impossible to do my work as a ward councillor. I was tired of intimidation, I was tired of the dysfunctionality, and these threats that go on and on and on,” she said. 

After spending two weeks in hospital, she realised “it was time to resign.” She noted that the biggest danger comes from the construction mafia. 

“Wherever there are projects, you’ve got the biggest risk of a councillor being murdered,” Harman said.

Her ward includes the Randburg CBD, Bryanston, Willow Wild and Blairgowrie. However, she stressed Randburg and Blairgowrie have been the worst affected. 

“If there are projects in an area, that councillor is the one at risk of being murdered, and it’s the construction mafia behind all of it.”

She added that “hostile political parties are in on the scheme” and are contributing to the problem.

Despite raising these issues repeatedly, Harman said she was met with silence. Without support, she noted that she realised that fighting a battle that was going to cost her life.

The threat is not taken seriously

Attempts to raise the crisis formally also failed. She explained that a full council meeting on the safety of councillors produced no action. 

“They’ve been sitting with the council protection policy since 2021. It’s just discussion after discussion. There’s no implementation,” she said. She also described the repeated threats made directly to her. 

“On the phone, I’ve been told a number of times to watch your back, we’re coming for you if you don’t get the projects our way, if you don’t bend to our rules, then you better be careful.”

She said these calls always come at moments when she can’t record them, but she knows exactly who the perpetrators are.

“Local police refused to help me. I ended up going to provincial police, and they were meant to refer me to the Hawks, which never happened,” she said.

While she lives in a secure area, Harman remains constantly aware that her life has been at risk for months.

Stepping down as a councillor means she will technically lose even the limited protection councillors are supposed to have.

However, as she put it, they’ve had no protection anyway, so she’s not missing out on that. Political parties outside of those governing Johannesburg have also failed to act.

“I don’t think anyone’s taking it seriously… everyone just thinks we all must get on with our job and not rock the boat,” she said.

Harman highlighted that she has been raising the alarm since April, warning that the situation was spiralling into a full-blown crisis. 

Now, she believes the city has reached a breaking point. “It’s too far gone,” she said. Harman fears more councillors will die before authorities take the threat seriously.