If Johannesburg works‚ South Africa works‚ the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for the country’s economic heartland in the coming local elections‚ entrepreneur Herman Mashaba told voters in the city on Saturday.On the election trail in Alexandra‚ he said there was a time after 1994 when Johannesburg had made progress towards redress.Herman Mashaba announced as DA's Joburg mayoral candidateThere was improved housing delivery and essential services. There was development. There was economic growth.“Freedom meant that our city became one Jozi‚ a city that everyone called home. But today that progress has stalled. Service delivery is no longer meeting people’s needs. Unemployment is unacceptably high‚” said Mashaba."Those close to government were getting rich‚ while everyone else was getting poorer‚ he added. “We have stopped moving forward. The current of corruption and bad governance is pulling us backwards.Herman Mashaba doesn't impress in interview with resistance to racial labels“That’s why I am standing as the DA’s change candidate. To make Johannesburg stand tall again. “I’ve entered the race of my life because I love this City and because I’ve seen how opportunity changes lives. It is deeply personal.“I know that opportunity is the difference between hope and fear‚ life and death‚” Mashaba told residents of the populous township.The founder of the Black Like Me business empire said that‚ like millions of black South Africans‚ he had grown up in poverty during the apartheid era and had been raised by his sisters while their mother had worked long hours as a domestic worker.Zuma must fall, through the ballot box: Herman MashabaA return to his home village of GaRamotse in Hammanskraal north of Pretoria earlier this week had shown little change.“The difficulty of life back then‚ in so many ways still exists today in places like Soweto‚ Alex‚ Orange Farm‚ Kaya Sand‚ and Zandspruit.“This is not yet a fair society. And this is why I work for change in Johannesburg.”Mashaba added that if the DA took office it would make corruption public enemy number one. “The poorest residents of Joburg suffer the most from corruption. Corruption steals our public money‚ and it kills jobs‚” he stated.He added: “There is nothing broken in Johannesburg that cannot be fixed by Johannesburg. Johannesburg has all the right ingredients to be a great city.”..