JOHANNESBURG, NOV 12 (AFP/APP): When G20 leaders touch down in Johannesburg this month, they will be greeted by a city scrubbed, patched, and polished, all part of a last-minute summit gloss thrown over years of neglect.
The urban sprawl of almost six million people is home to Africa’s richest square mile. In recent years, however, it has sunk into disrepair, with open sewers, potholed roads and crowded shacks of corrugated iron lining its fraying edges.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, dismayed by the decay, called the city’s state “not pleasing” and ordered a clean-up to spare Africa’s industry powerhouse global embarrassment. Then the bulldozers rolled in.
