With the 4 November municipal elections approaching, the political noise is rising, and so too are the familiar promises that a system responsible for much of the decline can be trusted to reverse it.
The ANC is reportedly weighing a merger of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni into a single Gauteng “megatropolis”, arguing that a new metropolitan structure could help address municipal dysfunction. The implications extend well beyond administration, however. The proposal would recast representation, accountability and the distribution of political power across South Africa’s economic heartland.
There is, of course, a legitimate historical precedent for municipal amalgamation in South Africa. The great restructuring of the late 1990s and early 2000s dismantled the racially fragmented local-authority system inherited from apartheid. Separate administrations were brought into integrated, non-racial municipalities, while richer and poorer areas were placed within common fiscal and planning frameworks. That project had a compelling constitutional purpose: it was about building a single democratic local state from a deliberately divided one.
However, that historical precedent does not automatically validate the creation of a Gauteng megatropolis. In fact, its rather a poor fit for Gauteng’s present circumstances.
Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni are established metropolitan governments, each with a distinct economic base, electorate, administrative machinery, infrastructure burden and fiscal position. Their political contestation only raises the stakes, making a proposal to collapse them into a single entity deserving of far more rigorous scrutiny.
South Africa has repeatedly reduced the number of municipalities on the promise that a larger municipal footprint would bring efficiency, stronger finances and better services. Sometimes consolidation may be unavoidable where a municipality is simply too small or too weak to function. However, the broader record is sufficiently evident: changing boundaries does not create management capability. It does not fix billing systems, stop theft and corruption, maintain pipes and substations, collect revenue, or impose consequences on officials who fail.
The danger is that we confuse size with competence.
A larger municipality may bring a bigger balance sheet and a more diversified revenue base, but those potential benefits come with a more extensive bureaucracy, more complex infrastructure demands and a wider range of competing local priorities. As decision-making moves further from residents, maintaining transparent lines of accountability becomes increasingly difficult.
Gauteng functions as a single urban economy: jobs, commuters, infrastructure and property markets cross municipal borders daily. It needs coordinated planning across transport, bulk services, land use and economic development, but there is a meaningful difference between coordination and centralisation. Those functions can be coordinated through shared agencies, ring-fenced utilities, binding intergovernmental arrangements and well-structured public-private partnerships, without collapsing three metros into a single political entity.
It is also difficult to ignore the timing. With the November elections approaching, local government has become one of the central political battlegrounds. Coalition instability, poor service delivery and municipal financial distress have become part of the daily political argument. In that environment, any proposal to alter municipal boundaries must be subjected to an especially high standard of proof.
In American politics, gerrymandering refers to the deliberate redrawing of electoral boundaries to favour a political party or protect incumbents. It is usually associated with congressional or state districts, where the line on a map can materially influence the outcome of an election.
The same principle applies when the structure of local government is altered. A Gauteng megatropolis would not amount to gerrymandering in the strict American sense, but folding three separate metros into one authority would inevitably reshape the electoral terrain. That makes it reasonable to ask who stands to benefit from the change- and why it is being raised as competition for Gauteng’s metros tightens.
Merging Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni would place three distinct electorates under a single authority. Municipal boundaries determine whose concerns carry weight and how readily poor performance can be punished at the ballot box. A merger of this scale could dilute local political voice while making it harder for voters to identify who is responsible for failure.
The investor implications are substantial. Gauteng’s economy depends on predictable tariffs, reliable utilities, transparent procurement and credible infrastructure planning. A merger would raise immediate questions over debt, tariff harmonisation, contracts, staffing, asset registers and revenue collection- each central to municipal creditworthiness and the cost of capital.
Combining three distinct balance sheets and governance records may obscure risk rather than reduce it, while a prolonged transition could disrupt operations before any efficiency gains materialise.
Gauteng’s municipal recovery will depend on practical institutional repair: credible financial controls, stronger revenue collection, ring-fenced infrastructure functions, transparent procurement and partnerships that bring operational expertise and capital into essential services.
South Africa’s history shows that amalgamation can serve a clear developmental purpose where it resolves fragmentation and delivers measurable benefits. In Gauteng, the priority should be accountable metros that coordinate where needed, compete where it improves outcomes, and remain answerable to the people they serve. For Gauteng, better governance (not a bigger government) is where reform should begin.
First published on LinkedIn, 2 September 2026.