Johannesburg, billed as Africa’s richest city because of its concentration of businesses and millionaires, needs R221 billion to catch up on maintenance and overdue upgrades across its collapsing road, power and water networks.

The city council discussed the shortfall late last month and detailed it in documents seen by Bloomberg. It comes at a time when regular power outages — the result of distribution-network breakdowns — hit large swathes of Johannesburg. Officials leave potholes unattended for months and parts of the city had no water for as long as 11 days in March.

The work pileup "highlights significant risks to public safety, economic safety and the environment if not addressed," the city said of the road network in the documents. "Ignoring the backlog could lead to deteriorating roads, unsafe bridges, flooding and increased accidents."

Financial and political turmoil in recent years has beset the city of about 5 million people that’s had eight mayors since 2019 due to constantly shifting coalitions. While the ANC and EFFare the largest parties in the ruling coalition with 119 seats between them, they have installed a mayor from the Al-Jama-ah party, which has just three seats. There are 270 councillors in total.

That’s in contrast to the national government where the ANC, which lost its majority in May elections for the first time in three decades, has allied with the Democratic Alliance and a number of other parties to run the country. The EFF is in opposition.

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