Payments made to the City of Johannesburg for electricity will, from July, be ringfenced and channeled back to Eskom in an attempt to address the city’s outstanding debt.

This is according to Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Johannesburg owes Eskom over R5 billion (in June it will be R6 billion), which has led to Eskom threatening to cut off or throttle the city’s electricity supply.

Eskom also said that electricity revenue collected by the city was not being paid over to it.

In a media briefing this week, Ramokgopa said that electricity revenue collected by the city would be ringfenced, and that Eskom would be intervening directly to assist City Power, the entity that manages electricity in Johannesburg.

Ramokgopa said: “Johannesburg is just too big to fail; it is the powerhouse of the South African economy. It is the epicentre of financial markets across the continent.”

About 30% of the power supplied in Johannesburg is not billed for, mainly because of illegal connections or meter tampering.

Sources that spoke to The Common Sense said that while residents are willing to pay for electricity to the correct authorities, criminal gangs will often cut their electricity off. In partnership with legitimate technicians, electricity will then be illegally connected for a fee, with monthly payments now being made to the criminal gang to keep the electricity on, rather than to a legitimate entity, such as the Johannesburg municipality or City Power.

There is good reason to believe that interfering in these networks could result in a violent backlash.

In addition, the risk of violent unrest as a result of disconnected electricity connections – whether disconnected by legitimate entities or not – is also high. The Common Sense has previously reported that the risk of unrest in South Africa is higher in colder months, into which South Africa is now heading (along with other factors). Widespread electricity outages or disconnections in Johannesburg could heighten the risk of unrest, with Johannesburg also often being an epicentre for violent unrest in the country.