The Democratic Alliance will request an urgent parliamentary briefing by Eskom, the City of Johannesburg, City Power, National Treasury, COGTA and the Minister of Electricity and Energy after Eskom issued notice of its intention to reduce, interrupt or terminate electricity supply to certain bulk supply points in Johannesburg.
This crisis has one author: ANC misgovernment.
Reports that Mayor Morero is now pleading with the Minister of Electricity and Energy to save the city from the consequences of its own financial mismanagement must not become a back-door bailout. The City of Johannesburg’s failing coalition government created this debt. And the City Government must pay it.
Johannesburg residents and businesses who have paid their electricity bills are now being placed at risk because the ANC-run City of Johannesburg and City Power have failed to pay Eskom. The City and/or City Power owe R5.255 billion in arrears, excluding a further R1.582 billion due on 5 June 2026. That is not a cash-flow problem. It is a governance collapse.
The ANC has treated municipal electricity revenue as a political slush fund rather than money ring-fenced to pay for electricity actually supplied. Honest residents who pay their bills are being betrayed twice – first by a failing ANC local government, and second by the risk of supply interruptions because the money they paid has not reached Eskom.
The DA will write to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy requesting an urgent joint briefing to establish how much of the debt is undisputed, which bulk supply points are at risk, whether revenue is being ring-fenced, and what consequence management has followed from repeated defaults.
The DA will also submit parliamentary questions to determine whether the Minister was aware of the scale of the debt and why the situation was allowed to deteriorate this far.
The principle must be simple: if residents have paid for electricity, that money must be used to pay for electricity.
The ANC broke Johannesburg’s finances. It must not be allowed to switch off Johannesburg’s lights.