{"id":832078,"date":"2025-07-18T10:35:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=832078"},"modified":"2025-07-18T10:35:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:35:52","slug":"lights-out-for-businesses-in-joburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/832078\/lights-out-for-businesses-in-joburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Lights out for businesses in Joburg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

City of Joburg power utility City Power is on a disconnection campaign to recover R1 billion in unpaid electricity bills, focusing on big businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city said that City Power is owed R10 billion in unpaid electricity bills, 30% (R3 billion) of which is from businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utility is focusing on large power users in the Inner City Precinct, where it has already disconnected six large businesses, including a building housing a higher education institution with R4.9 million arrears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In total, the campaign by the City of Johannesburg is targeting 1,062 municipal accounts, with a total arrears balance exceeding R1 billion,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key focus areas include Marshalltown, Fordsburg, and Doornfontein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utility said it was also focusing on illegal connections in the city, having already removed and confiscated over 10,000 kilograms of illegally connected aluminium cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cable, valued at approximately R500,000, was used to connect informal settlements to the grid, threatening the stability of the power supply and the safety of community members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city said this was a repeat occurrence, with the areas targeted having previously been nailed for illegal connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Previous disconnection efforts over the past year in the same areas have been undermined by repeated illegal reconnections, indicating a persistent and organised effort by criminal syndicates,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a long-term solution, the city is now looking to relocate the transformer substation to a more secure location where is not susceptible to tampering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that illegal connections continue to have a catastrophic impact on the electricity network and damage infrastructure, with Joburg losing R2 billion a year in non-technical losses, including illegal connections and meter bypasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Meanwhile, industrial companies located close to informal settlements are directly affected by illegal connections due to the frequent power outages caused by overloading,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This results in businesses halting operations, which in extension impacts the economy.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joburg’s problems extend to Eskom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Joburg Mayor Dada Morero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The City of Joburg is being forced to take drastic action to collect money owed because it, too, owes billions to national utility Eskom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2024, Eskom issued a notice of intention to interrupt power supply to Johannesburg, citing an outstanding debt of R4.9 billion in arrears, and an additional R1.4 billion in current charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mediation process was initiated in November of last year when the national government stepped in, which resulted in an agreement being negotiated and affirmed in June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the agreement, City Power will pay Eskom R3.2 billion over the next four years. In return, Eskom will write off R830 million in penalties and related costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While lower than the original claim by Eskom, the R3.2 billion is still a pressing issue for a city that has a stressed budget and a long list of issues that need to be addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infrastructure in the city is collapsing after years of neglect, with a maintenance backlog of well over R200 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the city has been strapped with paying off the debt of the failed e-tolling project, sapping billions more from the fiscus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now with a sizeable Eskom bill slapped on, the city has no choice but to aggressively pursue residents and businesses who have been taking a free ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City of Joburg power utility City Power is on a disconnection campaign to recover R1 billion in unpaid electricity bills, focusing on big businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":792888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[4280,7376,1164],"class_list":["post-832078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-city-of-joburg","tag-city-power","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832083,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832078\/revisions\/832083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}