Margaret Ngubane lives in a house with others in the inner city district of Berea in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photograph: Madelene Cronjé/the Observer
Rachel Savage – Sat 19 Apr 2025
Issues around basic services, corruption and class trouble vibrant Johannesburg, which this year hosts the G20 summit
Bethabile Mavis Manqele mops the veranda of the house she has lived in for most of the last 40 years. The ceiling above her is full of holes, blackened by years of cooking fires. Manqele, 64, isn’t sure how many people live in the house’s seven rooms. There are no utilities, the landlord is absent and she hasn’t paid rent in years, she says through a translator. The occupants share a portable toilet provided and cleaned by an NGO, plus one outdoor tap with the house next door, which has no roof…