By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Eskom and City Power have reached a settlement of R3.2bn over a contentious bill that threatened to plunge South Africa’s economic and financial hub into darkness.
The agreement comes after Eskom issued a notice in November, threatening to cut power supply to Johannesburg.
The agreement was reached following the Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s intervention, along with the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI), which conducted an independent assessment of the disputed amounts.
Ramokgopa, along with Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero, held a briefing at the Johannesburg Theatre, where they announced the settlement agreement on Tuesday, 24 June 2025.
The report was expected within six weeks but, according to the Minister, was delayed due to the magnitude of the work involved.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Ramokgopa provided an update on the dispute and announced that the two utilities had settled for R3.2 billion, to be paid over four years.
“Johannesburg City Power will pay R3.2 billion over a period of four years. It’s important to appreciate that this is a significant amount, and City Power and the City of Johannesburg have done everything possible to maintain payments on the current account,” Ramokgopa said.
“Despite all these difficulties of course there will be challenges from one month to the other but the issue in dispute remained in dispute until we resolved this matter”
He added that R830 million of the original debt had been written off, mainly due to meter reading failures caused by load-shedding.
“First we were able to confirm that there are issues that have to do with the impact of load-shedding remember this period also spanned that period where we had intense load-shedding.
“Where there is an absence of metering you are doing estimates and you can imagine you will not be accurate I think one of the lessons going into the future is we need to ensure that there’s bulk metering so that when there’s load-shedding it reads zero,” Ramokgopa added.
Morero acknowledged the challenges faced during the negotiation process but praised the efforts of all parties involved in reaching a workable settlement.
“The process that we undertook from November, yes it had its challenges but we want to acknowledge the work that the team put in place to ensure that at the end we can arrive at a settlement that we can all be comfortable with,” Morero said.
Meanwhile, City Poweer is in the process of offering Free Basic Electricity to poor, indigent households in the city.The programme aims to provide eligible customers with free electricity every month.