Johannesburg’s inner city electricity crisis is deepening as billions of rand in electricity losses, ageing infrastructure, illegal connections, and cable theft leave the city struggling to keep a battered network running.
Executive Mayor Dada Morero made the remarks at an Inner City Electricity Imbizo in Yeoville on Wednesday where he said electricity losses were about 29%, driven by illegal connections, meter bypassing, theft, and consumption that goes unrecorded.
Morero said the City of Johannesburg spends about R23 billion a year buying bulk electricity from Eskom but loses close to R7 billion because electricity consumed is not fully accounted for. He said illegal connections were also placing pressure on infrastructure not designed to carry the extra load.
“The city has to find the money to replace them,” he said, referring to burnt transformers and stolen cables, while urging residents to pay for electricity and municipal services.
The warning comes as residents and businesses in the inner city continue to deal with outages, while City Power grapples with infrastructure in some areas that was built decades ago.
