South Africa’s most important city collapsing in front of everyone’s eyes

·22 Apr 2025

The City of Johannesburg faces severe challenges, including water outages, traffic light problems, electricity blackouts, infrastructure collapse, and billing chaos.

Solly Msimanga, leader of the opposition in the Gauteng Legislature and DA Gauteng leader, said Johannesburg’s collapse is palpable and tragic.

Johannesburg is the wealthiest city in South Africa and the country’s economic hub. Its collapse is disastrous for the local economy.

Over the last few years, Johannesburg’s water infrastructure and management collapsed, causing persistent and crippling water shortages.

The city has a significant infrastructure backlog, which will cost billions to address. It does not have the money to resolve this issue.

It must upgrade or replace water and sanitation pipes to compensate for the city’s growing population and ageing infrastructure.

Johannesburg also battles with water infrastructure vandalism, caused by a lack of adequate security and protection.

A Rand Water report revealed that 47% of all treated water is lost due to leaks, poor maintenance, and neglected infrastructure.

Rand Water has been forced to over-abstract from the Vaal Dam, exceeding its licensed limit by 453 million cubic metres annually.

The primary cause is a lack of water infrastructure maintenance and upgrades, which resulted from a lack of good governance.

“The City of Johannesburg has thousands of leaks left unattended due to mismanagement, cadre deployment, and a complete lack of political will,” the DA’s Marina van Zyl said.

WaterCAN said that since November 2024, Johannesburg Water has implemented water supply reductions, and as a result, many areas have been experiencing low water.

“This is no longer a short-term crisis, but has become the standard way that the City of Johannesburg and its utility Johannesburg Water manage the water system,” it said.

The situation is worsened by Joburg Water, City officials, and bulk water supplier Rand Water’s lack of transparency and accountability.

“Despite mounting frustration, neither the mayor nor city leaders have provided meaningful responses or solutions,” WaterCAN said.

Electricity outages in Johannesburg

Another problem is electricity outages that persist with or without load-shedding and disrupt businesses and the economy.

These power outages are caused by collapsing electricity infrastructure and aging transformers and substations.

There is also vandalism of electricity infrastructure, a proliferation of illegal connections, and widespread cable theft.

To address these problems, the city needs to enhance revenue collection, improve its billing systems, and address load-shedding with alternative energy sources.

In addition to electricity infrastructure problems that cause blackouts, the City of Johannesburg is also fighting with Eskom about payments.

Energy expert Chris Yelland revealed that the long-standing dispute between Eskom and the City of Johannesburg over unpaid electricity bills has reignited.

Eskom threatens to resume power cuts due to non-payment of arrears, which could dump parts of Johannesburg into darkness.

“City Power and City of Johannesburg have not paid and are not going to pay. So, we are triggering the original action,” a source told Yelland.

The potential resumption of power cuts poses significant risks for Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest metropolitan municipality and economic hub.

Previous threats of power interruptions in November 2024 had targeted key areas, including the Johannesburg CBD, Midrand and Cresta.

Johannesburg’s chaotic billing system

Many Johannesburg residents are complaining about the city’s chaotic billing system, with inaccurate accounts and problems resolving the errors.

Last week, the Democratic Alliance highlighted that instead of automatically charging approved reduced tariffs, residents are still forced to pay the higher tariff.

“Residents are also forced to go through a lot of red tape to receive their refund,” the DA’s Gauteng constituency head Alan Fuchs said.

He said a good example is properties defined as multi-dwelling units, defined as any arrangement of premises that comprises more than one dwelling unit.

At the start of the financial year, the City of Johannesburg approved a reduced sewerage tariff of R314.60 per unit for multi-dwelling properties valued under R700,000.

However, instead of implementing this lower charge automatically, the city has continued to bill these households at the previously higher tariff of R704.47 per unit.

“When residents query the inflated charges, they are told they must formally apply for a tariff change, a process many are unaware of,” Fuchs said.

Refunds are only backdated to the date of application, rather than the date the tariff was approved.

This effectively allows the city to pocket overcharges until residents take action to correct their accounts.

“The DA Gauteng views this as a predatory revenue collection tactic that preys on residents’ lack of information relating to tariff information,” Fuchs said.

Infrastructure collapse in Johannesburg

A particularly pressing issue in the City of Johannesburg is infrastructure collapse which threatens most areas.

80% of the city’s bridges are at risk of failure or collapse, and there are potholes on many municipal and provincial roads.

Johannesburg has a severe backlog in road rehabilitation programmes. Rehabilitating its bridges alone will cost over R16 billion.

Some of its projects, like the Lilian Ngoyi street reconstruction, have also stalled because of contractor failure.

Many Johannesburg residents reported flooding during thunderstorms due to blocked stormwater drains.

There are also widespread problems with streetlights not working, especially along the major arterial roads.

Another pressing issue is traffic lights. The Johannesburg Roads Agency said the city needs R70 million to fix its broken traffic lights and replace stolen ones.

The JRA’s acting head of mobility and freight, Sipho Nhlapo, said that around 396 traffic lights in the city are vandalised.

Of these, about 202 are still functional, while the remaining 194 are completely out of order.

“194 sites are totally vandalised,” Nhlapo said. “If you had to go on that site, you won’t find a pole, you won’t find cable, you won’t find anything – and we need to rebuild those from scratch.”

He added that, at any given time, around 25% of Joburg’s intersections are not working due to power problems stemming from sources such as Eskom and City Power.

President Cyril Ramaphosa steps in

Johannesburg’s collapse has reached such concerning levels that President Cyril Ramaphosa has stepped in to address the issue.

He warned officials in Johannesburg to resolve a myriad of problems dogging the city ahead of a summit of leaders from the Group of 20 nations in November 2025.

“The environment that one observed was not a pleasing environment. I say this so that we can improve immensely,” said Ramaphosa.

He met with leaders from the central Gauteng province in the Johannesburg city council chambers to discuss the problems.

“If we do not move with speed to address the critical challenges identified, we risk undermining the progress we have made thus far,” he said.

The president added that local officials must demonstrate that he had made a good decision in choosing Johannesburg as the venue for the G-20 gathering.

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said he had apologized to Ramaphosa and assured him that the provincial and local government would address Johannesburg’s shortcomings.

“We are not dealing with these issues specifically for G-20,” he said. “We need a legacy program that all South Africans can enjoy,” Lesufi said.