Johannesburg needs leaders with a vision. This was the message from Ashley Mama, Al Jama-ah’s mayoral candidate for the upcoming municipal elections, in an interview on Salaamedia.
“The City of Jo’burg needs leadership that is much more creative in solving the issues and challenges of the city,” the entrepreneur and former ANCYL leader said on Tuesday. “You need a leader who has vision and the political will to change things and fix this mess.”
Mama promised to roll out an app to encourage active citizenry, should he be elected. It would allow residents to log faults, monitor progress and hold the municipality accountable with a real-time dashboard.
“They [residents] must engage and be participants. We’ll try to make that easier through our active citizenry app which will coordinate all the city entities … From the city side, we’re able to gauge who’s assigned to that so that there’s accountability to these public servants on one side,” he said.
However, service delivery apps have drawbacks. Kevin Foster, an independent research consultant, previously warned that smart governance could deepen inequality.
“In smart cities, splintering urbanism manifests through both the uneven distribution and the nature of technologies, which are easiest to use for those with access to and experience of the technology,” he wrote in a paper for the South African Cities Network.
“This leads to the benefits of technology being unevenly distributed, with highly capable spaces bundled together with premium infrastructure, while other spaces are marginalised.”
The City of Johannesburg spent R71.9 million on its Central Service Delivery app in 2024/2025. Residents have complained about failed log-in loops, missing reference numbers and lack of feedback, earning it an average rating of 2.4 stars on the Google Play Store.
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