Potholes along Lilian Ngoyi Street in Johannesburg. The provision of services in major metropolitan areas such as Johannesburg and Durban has deteriorated in recent years.

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France is in talks to lend South Africa money to support a programme to regenerate its rundown cities, the European country’s ambassador said.

The funding would add to the $925 million (R15 billion) lent to the country by the World Bank to finance the South African National Treasury’s Metro Trading Services programme, aimed at improving water and sanitation, electricity provision and solid-waste management services.

In April last year, the Treasury said it would ask global development finance institutions including France’s state-owned Agence Française de Développement to augment the World Bank funding.

France is “on the verge of providing another €100 million (R1.9 billion) loan to the metros in South Africa,” David Martinon, France’s ambassador to South Africa, said at an event in Johannesburg on Tuesday. It’s “so that they can actually renovate, change, reshape the way they approach service delivery in water management, waste management and the energy transition,” he said.

The programme focuses on cities where 22 million people, or more than a third of the country’s population, live across an area of almost 30 000 square kilometers. That’s almost 20 times the size of London. The provision of services in major metropolitan areas such as Johannesburg and Durban has deteriorated in recent years, resulting in frequent power and water outages.

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