By the way, this should be good for the rooftop PV installation businesses operating in the COJ area.
And who came riding to the rescue? Got path parties around the table and got consensus on a way forward which includes Eskom holding fire and COJ standing their lawyers down?
That’s right: Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. If only we had a few more like him involved in government.
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And the can gets kicked down the road again 
So far he’s got COJ to call their lawyers off and got them to pay a provisional bill. It wasn’t that they couldn’t pay, they believed Eskom were overcharging them.
Eskom have withdrawn their threats.
Both parties have agreed to the appointment of a third party technical entity to meter the bulk feed into Johannesburg with Eskom and CP having oversight.
This seems like common sense and progress to me.
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BUT - they historically owe R4.9 billion to Eskom … so that still needs to be dealt with AND no money is available…
The timeline is interesting to me…City Power looks to be on the back foot a bit…
What popped to my mind - very simplistically put:
- Overcharging, seems there is no proof of that? Zuma tactic by any chance?
- CoJ did collect electricity payments from the users right? It is in an account earning interest, right?
- The chopping and changing of mayors, nothing whatsoever to do with it, right?
- Eskom is owned by the Gov. Thus still mainly ANC “property”. Then we have ANC Mayors in Jhb. Along comes Ramokgopa, also ANC member, he miraculously sorts the ANC created “problem” in the nick of time … make him look really good, does it not?
Me I’m stuck on point 2 … if it is there, problem solved, right?
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It’s no secret that CP are not recovering what they should. They are aggressively cutting off properties who are in default and/or where meters have been bridged, or where the connection is illegal. But this is an uphill battle for them. It doesn’t help that one case ended up in court and the judge ruled that CP’s record keeping was poor and there was no reliable audit trail of what had been consumed and what had been paid. Case kicked out. CP to pay costs.
My perception is that things started deteriorating badly since 2019 when Mashaba was the first major without a majority behind him. Helen Zille said (words to the effect of) that these multi-party coalitions have to spend so much time looking for common ground to keep them together that they don’t have time for other things they need to do. The last Mayor was particularly poor, but I think it is a fact that COJ has not done well under any coalition.
Well I’d rather have him getting involved than Lesufi.
Non-payment is a big problem in Jhb. It is shack dwellers in squatter camps, and, if Mashaba is to be believed, listed companies with hoity-toity HQs in Sandton.
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I know someone who’s part of Eskom’s legal team fighting CoJ on this.
Apparently CoJ BS all the way, the dispute on over charging is only on a portion in the 10’s of millions, so they told CoJ long ago already, pay the rest of your outstanding money so that only the couple million in dispute is on the table, then we can go forward. CoJ however keeps ducking and diving so they seamingly don’t have the money.
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This is quite sudden deterioration then. As late as 2022 Eskom were saying that only municipalities in good standing with Eskom could make arrangements to buy electricity from elsewhere, and COJ were one of the rather short list of those whose accounts were in the black.
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Hold on. Let me see if I can verify that date. I know they were buying from Kelvin at one time, and Eskom knew about it and allowed it.
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Certainly October 2021. But pay walls… I understand why they’re there, but an oke just wants to check a quick fact…
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Interesting. I like this part:
In August 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa approved the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, marking a significant shift in South Africa’s electricity landscape.
This legislation aims to establish the Transmission System Operator SOC Ltd (TSO), an independent entity responsible for overseeing the national grid and promoting a competitive electricity market. This initiative comes after South Africa endured an electricity crisis since 2008, characterized by intermittent rolling blackouts and a culture of non-payment.
The TSO is expected to take over Eskom’s transmission operations over the next five years. During this transitional period, the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) will fulfill the TSO’s roles, which include balancing supply and demand in real-time, facilitating market transactions, and ensuring fair access to the grid for all electricity producers, including independent power producers. The act seeks to pave the way for various electricity market players, including traders and “prosumers” (consumers who also generate electricity for sale).
Is this worth a new thread @TheTerribleTriplet ?
As said previously, apparently the unbundling of Eskom in to this new company is already delayed, main reasoning they don’t have the money to go ahead, while municipalities owe them R85 Billion.
I read this morning Eskom reached an agreement with Tshwane to pay their outstanding R6 Billion debt over 5 years. Apparently they must continue paying all current invoices and then also start chipping away at the debt up until 2029,
Done.
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The speed at which this gargantuan company changed course on a dime … astounding.
https://dailyinvestor.com/energy/71747/eskoms-load-shedding-miracle-shown-in-one-graph/
Seems since Mantashe was replaced, that things started going right.
I’ll just put this MYBB article here, not a new thread.
It is starting it seems:
Maybe no more of that: It is a CoCT “regulation”? 
It is not.
You may recall my posting about getting my system registered with COJ. The guy I dealt with told me Eskom and nearly all municipalities have had these regulations on their books for years now, but enforcement has been lax. Also staff are not all getting the same information - especially problematic in COJ where it is really lots of individual contractors who all “know” different versions of the truth.
Anyway, it is there. It is law or by-laws wherever you may live. COCT are famous because they are actually enforcing those regulations and have done a lot of publicising. But COJ (in my case) have those regulations too.
I don’t think there has been enough publicity given to all of this. COJ’s approach right now is that OK, you can do a retrospective registration - as long as all standards are met - even though you should have applied first. But at some point they are going to decide that by now everybody should know, and they will start cracking the whip.
I don’t see this is a political or ethical issue or indication that I have taken sides in some debate. The utilities are running a grid. I have a system that can generate electricity and that is connected to their grid. Of course they have a legitimate interest.
Anyway, I now have a very nicely worded letter confirming that my system has been inspected, has met all the tests, and is registered by the city (and thanking me for going green), and I can produce that if it ever is necessary.
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