This incisive analysis exposes the fatal intersection of fiscal fantasy and political ego that has paralyzed Johannesburg's essential services. It serves as a grim masterclass in how institutional neglect can systematically dismantle a once-thriving urban powerhouse.
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Johannesburg Bankrupt: How To Destroy A City // The Corder ReportAdded:
Settle down, brother. This is the quarter report. South Africa is a movie.
Welcome to the watch party. The city of Johannesburg has sprung yet another leak, but this time it's not water. It is a letter from National Finance Minister Ino Goranguana to Mayor Dada Morero, slamming him for basically running South Africa's largest, most consequential, wealthy, and influential city into bankruptcy. We're going to talk about a leaked letter today. And while it may not be as salacious as somebody's private pictures sent to a lover, in many ways it is far more scandalous. I'm going to give you some top lines, just some toplines. The city of Johannesburg owes its creditors 25 billion rand and only has 3.9 billion rand to pay back the outstanding 25.2 billion rand. This is a disaster crisis moment for again the most influential city in not just South Africa but subsahar in Africa and arguably in Africa. And now it makes so much more sense why there is often no water, why there is often lack of maintenance electricity lines, why potholes aren't being fixed, why the most basic services like waste removal are not happening, why city streets are less safe because there is not enough money flowing regularly to different crucial organs of local government to deliver a basic service set to a city that deserves it.
It is a shocker.
>> It's a real pity that James isn't on this episode. the amount of words I >> he has for Damor.
>> Thank you to our members. Those of you who click join on YouTube, support the show by giving us 100 grand a month. We really appreciate it. And then if you're interested in advertising on the show like Yoko has and Suzuki and I was reminded this morning, Creepy Crawley did too. Another iconic South African uh company, all you need to do is email us at the email address contacties.com.
Let's get into the show. And I have to tell you that we're going to talk about this letter and how truly screwed City of Joberg is. We're going to talk about how much of it is the NC and Dorero's fault because I will remind you there have been 11 mayoralties in 10 years in Johannesburg. There have been twice as many mayoralties in Joberg in the last 10 years as there have been winners of Big Brother South Africa. Twice as many.
But let's talk about this letter, Eric.
It's only four pages long and really only three in a bit.
>> But it's scathing pages. scathing pages.
And so I'm going to just pick out a few parts of it. Okay. And I'm going to start with the heading 2526 adjustments budget. Enochana's letter to Dam Morero says it was approved by Job Council on 20 March 2026. But here are some following issues. Revenue collection levels are not meeting budgeted targets.
Meaning city of Jo is literally not making enough money to satisfy what they need to spend as per their budget.
Johannesburg water. It's been overestimate an overestimation of exchange revenue or service charges and the trend continues the underreovery can increase at year end essentially meaning Joe ward is not generating enough money to cover its cost then 31 January 2026 over expenditure reflects over expenditure of approximately 3.9 billion on employee related costs b purchases electricity inventory consumed operational costs and it all goes on at the very bottom it must be emphasized that annual budget in terms of section 181 of the Municipal Finance Management Act, MFMA, may only be funded from a realistically anticipated revenues to be collected or b cashbacked accumulated funds from previous years surpluses not committed for other purposes. It goes on the adjustments budget, this is page two now, was assessed by national treasury to be unfunded.
Revenue collection was overstated, expenditure was understated. The understatement of expend expenditure will most uh mostly result in unauthorized expenditure into by June 2026 which is in 23 days which will put further strain on the municipality. Then there's the failure to pay creditors within 30 days in terms of the municipal finance management act and that is where the 3.9 billion comes from. The outstanding amount owed to creditors has increased from 17 billion in 2223 to 25.2 2 billion in 2425 and the city's cash and cash equivalent of 3.9 billion in 2025 is dramatically insufficient to pay off that 25 uh.2 billion. And then finally, imminent unsustainable salary adjustments. The city has signed an agreement with the South African Municipal Workers Union in November 25 committing to 10.3 billion in salary increases over the next two years to address a wage dispute. Then in Goranguana tears D Morero a new one by essentially saying if you do not remedy the situation if you do not cancel this illegal agreement of a wage increase that will cost the city 10.2 2 billion uh for Sam Woo that Sam Woo has gone into agreement with. He will he will invoke section 2162 targeting your July 2026 equitable share installment which is essentially a chunk of money sent to the city of Johannesburg in July 2026 probably estimated around 8 billion rands worth. So money that the city of Job thought they were going to be able to spend getting from treasury they will not get. This is so bad. Is it Dada Morero's fault? Yes. Yes, it is Dada Morero's fault. The overestimate of revenue generation and the under reporting of expenditure is literally misrepresenting the city of Johannesburg's finances to justify a budget that they can't afford. The mismanagement to allow spiraling uh credit owing from 17 billion to 2000 to 25 billion. It's Dam Morel's job as them as Joe Bug mayor to correct that and to address that. He was elected in 2024. So 24-25 literally this play is about you. Data Morero. Yet another euphoria reference. I don't know what's happened to me in the last two weeks.
Then Dam Morero's uh reign has made this agreement with Sam Samu that the city of Joberg even if they had no debts hilariously cannot afford that pay increase. And what this consequentially means is the city of Joberg is practically practically bankrupt, unable to pay its creditors, unable to pay for its agreements and commitments, and unable beyond all of that to just pay for the functions of the city of Joig that are supposed to be serving estimates based on how you technically categorize job between five and six and a half million uh residents because you don't technically obviously include Ekurani and further flung areas connected physically to Joberg in that guesstimation. It is appalling. It's how you destroy a city. It and frankly it makes perfect perfect sense.
>> You got to know it's bad when you know Guana basically gives you an ultimatum like scrap the wage agreement or I'm withholding 8 billion rand.
>> Like that is hectic. And the thing is it's like it's so bad that it also might cause like a ratings downgrade >> and the city of >> Yeah. Yeah. And so like that's that's really hectic. Yeah.
>> And the fact that it's been allowed to get this far, I mean, >> it's beyond the pale, man. So, whose fault is this? I just told you it's start fault. A lot of it is. Of course, in the last 10 years, there have been a couple of mayoralties run by the not ANC and poor Palatically two mayoralties, technically two, and obviously Herman Mashabas for the DA when he was head of the DA. So, it's not a pure story of the ANC, but I'll remind you that the ANC and the EFF installed the two Aljima mayors, Cabela Gumandanda and Tapello Ahmad in a future politics nerd pub quiz. Uh, that will be a staple question. Who are the two Aljama mayors uh of Johannesburg? But it is by and large by all the years a story of ANC destruction of the city of Johannesburg.
Of course, it is also a story of political instability because when you've got coalitions collapsing all the time and you get new ruling governments, these new ruling governments then act quickly, change projects, start new projects, that causes wasted money and wasted funds, projects going wrong. Uh that in constant instability and churn slows down projects delivery, it destabilizes um services like uh you know the city maintaining its roads, water provision, sewage provision, waste removal and electricity. It's all destabilizing factor which runs up costs. But the other problem is a political disincentive problem and this is a problem with all politicians uh is that a politician makes decisions to make themselves look good short term knowing that they're unlikely to be in that position when the consequences of their financial decisions become real.
So a politician wants to make a good impression on the public. They will spend an enormous sum of money and they will take out like they will let their department or their government function go into debt knowing that the buck will probably fall upon stop with their successor or successes when eventually the debtors come along and say you owe us money. That politician will be somewhere else doing something else.
They'll never have to face the consequences of their financial mismanagement. And that's clearly happened in the city of Joberg at the point in which you have 11 mayoralties which means 11 uh what's it execs 11 uh mayor uh mayors like uh sorry MEC's MMC's all of them in different departmental positions constant churn constant change all the time that's the tale of this in Johannesburg it's really really really bad >> and it's crazy because it's like it's not even that they're just not around to take the flack afterwards They're also can't make a name for themselves in a way, right? I was thinking about popularity and then the way you um mentioned that there were more mayors than big brother South Africa winners.
Twice as many and you know on one side maybe you can make a good name for yourself if you actually have running water. You can have more shower hours might make you popular >> in Big Brother >> in Johannesburg.
>> Yeah, that's that's unfortunately a really sad reality of politics is that the most most of the most important stuff is not glamorous. If someone balanced Joberg's books and paid off their debts, that's not sexy. That's not look at this bridge or look at this housing project that I finished. And that unfortunately is something that I wish we could change. And that would require an extraordinary public education drive to to teach voters to care about the minutiae and mundane qualities of government. I think a lot about Sunzi as the head of Scoper like he is doing painful work trying to like fix and uncover the rot within the RAF that's not easily going to translate into glory and glamour on the campaign trail >> and yet we know that it's important >> vitally important >> but we need everybody else to know too >> 100%. So tell your friends not to vote for Rise or to love Sun or Zeb, but to care about this stuff. Okay, let's move on to the next mudsling. The mudslinging that's happened in the last 24 hours. Uh Ben Cronin is someone we've had on before. He's great. He's a commercial lawyer at UCT. He's an advocate for tax and public money and he tweeted yesterday something which is true. The ANC is being and has always been decampa campaigned by national treasury. The the finance minister has just reminded a few of those who were still in denial. This is not to say that Joik's finances aren't a mess, but the timing seems perfect for maximum electoral impact. So this goes back to an argument that the finance ministry has always been at loggerheads with the ANC. The ANC wants to do huge budget projects. The finance ministry wants to balance the books. Our finance ministry largely wants to play a neoliberal playbook of uh spending qu uh as little as possible, I think it's fair to say, or spending very little from the government's public purse, writing off debts, keeping inflation low, all of that good stuff. The ANC wants to spend money to get the e the economy running, wants to do big public works projects, wants to really transform people's lives. So they're always at loggerheads, right? That makes sense. It's arguably healthy. It's arguably a healthy dynamic in a functioning democracy to have a finance ministry trying to look after the pur strings and to have a political party trying to push for more expenditure because you find a good balance between the two. Ideally, >> it's just a pity that the neoliberal austerity measures in the past so far have really been, you know, cutting fairly essential budgets like education for example. Right.
>> Totally. Yeah. had dire consequences like the government getting a decimal place wrong on the diesel subsidy. Yeah, pretty rough. Uh so that happens often but it's more complicated than that because the finance minister is an MP appointed by the president. So it is always a little bit more complicated than that and that's when you see intrainc loggerheads between say a finance minister MP and other ministers that we saw with the that budget debacle. That was literally the finance ministry and the finance ministry aligned ANC MPs against the anti- finance ministry ANC MPs and they were explicitly fighting with each other. That was a serious civil war happening throughout the African National Congress. The finance ministry rightly is overwhelmingly pissed off with the ANC because the finance ministry has to figure out how to balance books and keep a functioning economy and a functioning government.
While the ANC as a culture has fleeced the state. mass robbery, mass state capture, mass looting of budgets, mass corruption, mass tender fraud, mass all kinds of awful robbery of South Africa, which really means robbery of the government, which means robbery of the public purse, the budgets, which is taxpayer funded, which is money that the finance ministry is supposed to be able to use to assign to different projects to help South Africans, and also keep South Africa's economy stable, keep debt low, keep inflation low, keep interest rates low, all of that good stuff that South Africans ans want. But what Ben Cronin is saying here, what he is or what he is accusing the finance ministry of of releasing this criticism of data Morero late in the last 6 months basically before 4 November when the local government elections are happening. Now Ben Cronin is saying in this post that the leak must be attributed to the finance minister. It is slightly more complicated than that because the letter was sent two weeks ago. And if you look at the CC's on the document, there's the there is an MEC uh in Johannesburg from the EFF. There's also Venus Labisa. Uh so we don't know who leaked it. We also know that the letter was sent to the DA which but the DA was not CCD within all this. So the DA chose to go public with this along with everybody else yesterday. So it's more complicated than assuming that this is a hit on uh the ANC in Johannesburg.
But it is worth thinking about whether the finance ministry went, we're going to send this to them at a moment which will bring consequences to them where they have otherwise completely ignored us and flouted any reforms or changes to try and fix their books. It's almost like the finance ministry was like, "What kind of letter can we send and when?"
which is a justified letter that needs to be sent that will cause the ANC and Johannesburg and the Jober city mayor to actually respond to us the way they should have been responding all the other times and didn't because there was no public pressure.
>> You're right. I mean, it's >> it's underhanded.
>> Sure. But it's also like a moment where maybe it's just like, you know, like we've had enough. Yes, >> we've had enough and also this is our mandate to do so we're doing our job >> so you know it doesn't necessarily help the ANC um >> because obviously the finance ministry is within the ANC too you're part of >> so what happens now over to you are the cog minister I know that these are your GNU compadres I know that you co-run uh KZN with your IFP premier Tamian Tuli Tamang Khanuli with the ANC as well as the DA. I know this is awkward. I know it is difficult but this is a calamity and I'm glad frankly that we all know the extent of the calamity now but this is a calamity and you need to seriously threaten to step in because generally what COGA does is they send through a list of demands or you need to step in and the city of Jerber needs to go into basically business uh rescue. You have the power to dissolve the council Benin Labisa as Cogda has done in the past and other municipalities. You have the power to call for new elections. You have the power to visit serious consequences upon financially and governance delinquent mayors and their supporters.
Up to you man. This is a big moment for you. This is a big moment. The GNU has not uh uh thrown you into a positive or a negative narrative. you've been largely in the national media, one of the less spoken about and forgotten ministers, which might be working out well for you. Maybe you're happy with that. Maybe your your role as a minister is mainly about traditional affairs.
Maybe you found it important to convince your IFP support base that you're doing good for them. Uh maybe being a low profile has worked out for you, but this this moment is about you now and you have to decide what to do here.
>> It does feel like you you you're right in saying that it might not be a hit.
You know, I was just thinking about like it could actually reflect positively on the ANC going towards elections because it's not necessarily that like these are ANC core issues like the entirety of Jo's history isn't necessarily all ANC as you said, but it's something that I think we we generally attribute to the ANC just like NESF and now we have well Joberg being like one step away from being under administration. Yes.
>> And we have had NESF going under administration. I wonder if it is a way of kind of like refocusing the the limelight, if you will, to say like, "Ah, like we do actually care. We're taking these extreme measures."
>> Well, they have to get rid of Dam Morero. I can't believe I'm still saying that. I can't believe he can still be got rid of, but they have to get rid of him. His local branch has already tried to um excommunicate him and and and take him out of the mayor position. ANC national executive stepped in to stop that from happening. They have to get rid of him. It is entirely absurd that he continues to collect a salary.
Entirely absurd.
>> I agree.
>> Wow. What a mess. And again, this Joberg story is a story for the whole country because now think of your local ANC rulership. Maybe similar nonsense is going on here. If it can happen in Joberg, it can happen anywhere. And now, of course, as I said at the top, Johannesburg influences the whole country to a far greater extent than any other place in the country. So, it's big. Okay. got a lot of WhatsApp line, a lot of YouTube comments from yesterday, lots of hoyang about FIL Adams and General Kenazi and lots of even stuff from before then. But before all of that, it's time for the TBN quiz. And congratulations to a lot of you on WhatsApp and in the YouTube comments who got it right yesterday. 30 seconds being the uh game invented by a South African in 1998. Time for the TBN quiz.
>> Yep.
>> TBN, I'm actually too depressed to dance today.
>> Too depressed about Jober. Let's go >> depressed.
>> Okay, Dan, I have a question for you today.
>> Yes.
>> And it is.
>> I'm listening.
>> What is the oldest >> Mhm.
>> official >> Okay, >> those two words are important. Tourist attraction >> in South Africa.
>> Oh, okay.
>> Because I need I need to put the word official there because older some things in South Africa are very old. Let me know on the uh WhatsApp line and YouTube comments. I don't know if I'm going to get this right. In Moscel Bay, >> okay, >> or Sana Bay.
>> Mhm.
>> I think it's Marcel Bay. There is I want to say like a tree.
>> Okay.
And in the 1600s, I think before Fenribec arrived in the Cape, a Portuguese explorer vessel >> Mured in the area and left a note. So, one of the ships uh sailors left a note in a tree for in the hope that any other European passer by would find it and read it. and it is widely like I guess tongue and cheek sidly considered South Africa's first post office.
>> Cool.
>> So that's my guess. Could be wrong.
>> I think I think the problem with that guess because it's not correct. Um is >> is the is is why I put emphasis on the word official because it is you know is a tourist attraction. It is like listed for the South for South Africa as a tourist destination. The reason why that came to mind is because you said official and I was thinking tourist attractions created by the aparate government or the colonial government would have had a lens of white history, white people in South Africa history.
And I thought that could be in their perspective the oldest original. But now I'm thinking about just a tourist attraction that is way older than that that is an official tourist attraction.
No, I mean you're you're on the the right like train of thought. Um you're not derailed. Don't worry because because a lot of these um tourist attraction sites, you know, uh and and you can't see me, but I'm inverted commas around the word discovered, you know, by some white person at some point.
>> Cool.
>> Uh in history.
>> Well, we'll see. All right. I want to start with uh Caitlyn sent us a message about the xenophobia episode.
This is going to hit close. Hello again.
As per yesterday's episode on xenophobia, I'm begging people to read France Fernan's The Wretched of the Earth. It is a formative text that I think that I think every post-lberation country should read and would be an excellent addition to your reading list if you ever make one. Uh it was actually a set work in uh English undergrad at UCT, literature undergrad, that both Eric and I, well, Eric read. I'll say more about that in a second. Uh Caitlyn goes on, a quote from the chapter, the pitfalls of national consciousness.
Fernan speaks very explicitly on why foreign African people are treated with such disdain. Quote, "From nationalism we have passed to ultra nationalism to chauvinism and finally to racism. These foreigners are called on uh are called on to leave. Their shops are burned.
Their street stores are wrecked. And in fact, the government of Ivory Coast commends them to go, thus giving their nationals satisfaction." End quote.
Caitlyn goes on, "We're not the Ivory Coast and our government has not asked foreign nationals to leave, but the symmetry between post liberation countries is illuminating." Thank you, Caitlyn. You're absolutely right.
The reason why I got a little weird there is because in English second year, uh, I was doing a lot of radio and not attending class at all, like at all. And in the 2 days before the end of first semester exam, I decided to read just enough of the set works to be able to answer all of the uh essay questions in the exam and I saw that they well they supposed to say we cuz I was a part of that class technically had read France Fenan's wretched of the earth and I thought oh I've read black skin white masks and I love that book and I can remember it in hyper detail. I don't need to read wretched of the earth. I understand enough of Fenan's thinking it will be fine which I have to say was a level of stupidity and irrespons or lack of responsibility that still to this day almost makes me feel shame but it doesn't anyway I walk into the paper brother I don't know if you were in that exam it said >> well I must have been >> it said in France Fernan's the wretched of the earth oh no no I don't think you would have been because I did second and third year in one go while we were both in third year.
>> Are you right?
>> It was the year after I did second and third year.
>> That actually makes a lot of sense though because I know for a fact that then that exam when I was in second year >> black skin white mask the following year they did rich I we so I walk into the paper thinking I can handle this. It'll be fine. I've read black skin white masks. It'll be totally fine. And it says in France for nons the wretched of the earth he comes up with about 10 or 12 neogisms which is words that don't exist that he invented for concepts that he'd come up with and it lists the neologisms and it says what did he mean by these neologisms.
So I read 10 to 12 words that I'd never seen before >> and I had to make up what I thought Fenon meant by them.
>> I'm sure that went well. And remember, Fenon was writing in French, so they were translations of the analog. So it was even less likely that I could look at the word and from it deduce what it probably was talking about.
>> I passed that paper with I think 56 I want to say, but I always imagined the I always imagined the marker being like, "Thising guy is making this up."
>> Yeah. Yeah. like figuring out that I'd made stuff up, but still having to have the kind of emotional maturity to go if he's kind of got it right, I kind of have to give him the marks. But you I was so sure I'd failed that paper.
>> I was so sure. Anyway, Caitlyn, that's why I got a little nervy.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you bring up a non >> when black skin white masks like inapp but definitely not the wretched of the earth. Okay. So, let's go to Mike on the WhatsApp line. So, we've been talking a lot about Star Wars this week and andor andor is this phenomenal show which really gets into the the minutiae of the evils of empire and colonial domination and genocide just happens to be through a Star Wars universe. It's been so wellreed and adored by so many people who don't watch Star Wars because it's not really a Star Wars show and you don't have to enjoy Star Wars. You just have to tolerate a little bit of space age sci-fi to be able to get the best out of it I would say as a Star Wars fan. Uh but that's why and always cut through. That's why they won a Peabody.
Imagine a sci-fi show winning a Peabody award. So Mike uh wanted to say a little bit more about why he really feels like andor is useful to watch as a South African. Remember Andor is about a depiction of a very evil empire, subverting democracy, colonially expanding, uh resource extraction, genocide, oppressing minorities, oppressing whole planets worth of people who the empire deems to not be important. Here's Mike. I >> think it's awesome. I'm going to talk about Andor. It's one of my favorite shows of all time. I think um it's a really, you know, it's not just good for looking at America, but I think it's a really good way of looking at the history of South Africa and aparatide and the resistance to it. And um I think it's a really useful tool for helping um white people understand how the Apatai government worked. And I think it's amazing that it's an allegory because it helps people to see themselves in it without being kind of confronted directly. you know, when you sort of I think sometimes when we just give people the facts about apartheid, it it confronts the understanding of reality too much because it's head on.
Um, but sometimes when an allegory can come in tangentially and help help people to see how things work.
>> Great point, Mike. Absolutely, completely agree. Okay, let's get into YouTube comments from yesterday's show.
Lots of people including Mlangu 6015 saying, "I've been proudly shouting 30 seconds, but we will see." Um, at Catmo, Eric sounds like Batman. Not the first time Catmo that Eric has been told that.
Uh, the other person that Eric sounds like is every great American voice over of coming this summer or like tonight in the NWA on ESPN. In the NWA >> NBA NWA is with Attitude, the phenomenal hip-hop group.
>> Yes. I love it when they're on ESPN.
Imagine if NWA played basketball. That would be really professionally in the NBA. I'm sure the members of NWA played basketball.
>> I'm pretty sure you were just trying to get to NWBA, but >> I was.
>> Yeah.
>> WNBA.
>> That one >> women's national even me I get confused.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh Damnit Simon. Serious question. Is Eric Australian? No.
>> No.
>> At Gubvu, use some eye drops next time.
So, I would like to say that I have been very sleepd deprived this week. And I asked Eric before's yesterday's recording, do I need eye drops? Because he said something about my eyes looking a bit red because he was looking through the camera and he and he said, "No, I meant red as in like the focus." Cuz when you focus on our cameras, like the focus area of the image goes red. And I said, "Do I need eye drops?" And he said, "No." So, thanks, Eric.
>> Yeah, my bad.
>> Yeah, it literally you're I'm very upset about this. Okay. Not as upset though as I would have been because before we end the show I just want to remind all the faithful that Kaiser Chiefs drew with Mammali Sundowns last night thereby handing Orlando Pirates a clear path to the Premier Soccer League title. Eric, no team has stopped uh Sundowns from winning the the Premier Soccer League becoming national uh soccer champions of South Africa in 9 years. They've won the last eight and because and this is the only time I will ever say this >> coursey for life because Chiefs got a draw with Sundowns last night. Pirates are now clear to the title. They have three games to go and a better goal difference than Sundown. So if they win all three and maintain the goal difference differential, Pirates will win the league. And that is absolutely magnificent news. Very excited about that. More magnificent news, we will have a bonus emergency show tomorrow of the quarter report uh because the Palopala judgment is finally coming out.
The constitutional court says it will be at 10:00 a.m. I don't know when our show will come out because as you may have recently experienced with Judas Malemma's uh conviction and ch and uh what's this? Sentencing. It's very hard to tell how long it takes for a ruling to be made and for judges to yap. It very it really varies in time. But we will have something for you tomorrow directly in the wake of that ruling being delivered by the constitutional court. Eric, >> given the current uh Pirates situation, yes.
>> Does it make you upset that there's only one super fan listed from Pirates going to the the World Cup >> versus two from Amali Sundance?
>> No, I don't want to go. And this is so sad, but I'd love to go watch Buffana, but not in America. I'd love to go watch the opening game against Mexico, but you can't get a ticket to that. All the Mexicans have bought them and they're too expensive. I'm not sad about that.
Also, the idea of having to pretend to like Gayton McKenzie and shake his hand in press photos, it was a non-starter for me. Okay, so TBN quiz question was >> It sound like you were touted as the second Orlando Pirates fan to go.
>> I wasn't I was nowhere near I wasn't in the running. Okay, so the question was >> the question was what was the oldest what is the oldest official tourist attraction in South Africa? I may have dribbled you in hindsight >> by when it was made a tourist attraction.
>> Correct.
>> Okay, so I was on the right side with the post office thing. I was going to explain that now. I should have explained it then. I didn't. Um, >> okay. Can I ask a follow-up? Was it created by the apartate government?
Sorry. Was it created in the Union of South Africa or was it like created by like a colonial government before 1910?
>> Uh, it was yes.
>> Okay.
>> It was. So that's why you were on the right track.
>> Was it created by the British or any of the BU republics?
>> That is a good question. Okay. What's >> um Okay. The answer >> and it's still a tourist attraction.
>> Yes. is the Kango Caves.
>> What?
>> Yeah. To be fair, like they are supposed to be like 150,000 years old or so, right?
>> That was made by that was made the first official tourist attraction ever in southern Africa by a a government.
>> Not necessarily the first, but one that's still around, right? So, in terms of oldest and like now um Yeah, it was I mean I think it was discovered in Hold on. I made a note on this. I just don't have my notes open.
>> Discovered and again discovered in inverted commas, right? Yeah. By a farmer in the area. found by people by white people in 1780.
>> It's a set of cave chambers just just outside of Wtown.
>> Yep.
>> That's where James actually uh does the edits. Works remote. He's got Wi-Fi in there. It's pretty cool.
>> In the caves. Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's It's attached to the back of an ostrich.
>> They do have a really high um I don't know why I know this, but um >> Have you been?
>> I have actually.
>> That's probably why.
>> Um >> there's a like a I I forget what they're called. Well, it's not like a stallic might or a stallic site, but it's um there's like a drip stone or something.
So, I guess I guess that would be a stallic mite, I suppose, but it's like 9 m tall.
>> During the edit, >> very old, obviously. You can imagine how long it takes for stone to form basically. And >> oh, it's a drip stone. Oh, stone. It doesn't drip water.
>> No, no, no, no.
>> Okay. It drips stone.
>> The drips have created >> stone >> basically.
>> That's pretty fascinating.
>> Yeah. Anyway, um but the first guided tours and like where it became becomes like an official tourist attraction that's what it is is um 1891.
>> Wow.
>> Which is really old.
>> That's crazy.
>> Because when I was you know when I was trying to find something for the TBN quiz, I was also thinking about other older like old colonial structures and things like you know uh Kush Gardens or something like that you know like areas like that that were fairly old but but that's a little bit younger coming at at like established in like 1913. So um but yeah I was also surprised about the cradle of humankind to be fair because I think uh it only became like a UNESCO heritage site >> had to discover the bodies >> in 1989 >> really so recent >> and then I think like proper proper stuff started in like 2005 which is a little bit wild to think about.
>> Why is it called the Kango Caves?
>> That I don't know. Are you looking it up right now? So, cave paintings and artifacts indicate that the caves were in use throughout prehistory over a long period during the Middle and later stone ages. That's very cool.
>> I want to know why it's called the Kango Caves. I'm going to do something bad.
I'm just going to ask Google. Uh, and you can correct me on the WhatsApp line or YouTube if I'm wrong. Why is it called the Kango Caves?
Interested. Oh, the Kango Valley.
>> Fair enough.
likely a corruption of a koi koi word.
Um so white people would have heard koi koi people calling that area kango or or similar probably with a click in it that they then couldn't say knowing white people. All right on that bombshell we will see you tomorrow uh for a bonus pala pala special episode of the quarter report. Have a good Thursday.
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