The rising cost of electricity in South Africa is deepening the divide between the rich and the poor, particularly in cities like Johannesburg. As power prices soar, residents in underprivileged neighborhoods like Yeoville and Bellevue are feeling the strain. Last year, a broken cable left these areas without power for four weeks. Even after power was restored, residents faced rotating blackouts, with electricity supplied in limited two-hour blocks each day. The city’s aging infrastructure, plagued by frequent overloads, is struggling to meet demand.
Despite these challenges, electricity costs for some of South Africa’s poorest citizens increased by up to 60% on July 1. The sharp rise in prices is adding to the burden of those already struggling to afford basic necessities. Just a few hundred meters away, in stark contrast, one of the country’s most expensive private schools, St. John’s College, has managed to reduce its dependence on the unreliable grid by installing solar panels. This disparity highlights the growing gap between the wealthy, who can afford renewable energy solutions, and the poor, who are left to bear the brunt of rising electricity costs.
Johannesburg, South Africa’s richest city due to its concentration of businesses and millionaires, encapsulates the central struggle faced by the country’s poor. Renewable energy solutions, while increasingly necessary to escape the costly and unreliable grid, are prohibitively expensive for most people. At the same time, the local utility, City Power, claims that the growing adoption of home solar systems is putting additional strain on their finances, forcing them to raise rates to maintain service.
“We are very adversely affected. It’s a problem,” says Tsepo Matubatuba, a 67-year-old retired priest living in Yeoville. Frustrated by the rising costs and ongoing neglect of poorer neighborhoods, Matubatuba helped establish the Yeoville Bellevue Electricity Movement to protest against these issues. The group’s formation comes as electricity prices in South Africa have nearly tripled over the past 14 years, leading wealthier households and businesses to invest in clean-energy solutions like solar panels and batteries. According to GoSolr, South Africa’s largest renter of solar panels and batteries for homes, around 670 megawatts of solar power have been added to residential rooftops nationwide. Approximately half of that capacity is in Johannesburg, a city of about five million people.
City residents with “postpaid” utility accounts currently pay an electricity connection fee of about R1,150 per month, in addition to sliding-scale costs based on actual usage. For many poor residents, however, this fee is unaffordable. In response, City Power introduced prepaid meters, which eliminate the connection fee but come with higher rates. While prepaid meters were designed to ensure customers pay for their electricity usage and prevent the utility from having to chase unpaid bills, they have also become popular with middle-class residents who have reduced their power consumption by installing solar panels and batteries. Roughly 115,000 customers that City Power considers “affluent” have switched to prepaid meters, allowing them to avoid the R1,150 monthly service charge.
In an attempt to offset lost revenue, City Power increased the cost of prepaid electricity by 12.7% last month—more than double the inflation rate—and added a R230 monthly service charge. These measures amount to a 60% increase in electricity costs for the poorest households, who typically use about 200 kilowatt-hours of power each month, according to EE Business Intelligence. For many South Africans, this means making difficult choices between paying for electricity and buying food for their families.
“Prepaid meters have become a way of punishing people for being poor,” says Tracy Ledger, head of the energy transition program at Johannesburg’s Public Affairs Research Institute. City Power, however, argues that the monthly charge is necessary to address a R40 billion maintenance and upgrade backlog. Similar measures have been implemented by other South African municipalities, as they struggle to maintain and improve aging infrastructure. Johannesburg has been trying to implement this charge since 2018, and earlier this year, the city proposed a fee of more than R500 per month.
Critics counter that the increase is merely the most recent instance of a city government—typically comprised of unstable and unorganized coalitions—taking advantage of its most vulnerable citizens. Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda of Johannesburg resigned on Tuesday following months of political strife and persistent challenges in maintaining the city’s finances. Since 2019, Johannesburg has had eight different mayors, a sign of the unpredictability that has beset the city’s political establishment.
For the poorest residents, there is a way to apply for free electricity, but the process is complicated. South Africa’s National Treasury allocates funds to different municipalities to provide free services based on the number of poor households in each area. In the most recent financial year, Johannesburg received 1.8 billion rand to cover electricity costs for over 1.1 million indigent households—the highest number of any of the country’s five largest metropolitan areas.
A spokeswoman for City Power states, “We encourage our disadvantaged consumers to utilize this advantage.” A variety of documentation and a monthly salary of less than R6,213 are necessary for this benefit, and the application process is complex. Additionally, applications can only be submitted by citizens or permanent residents of South Africa, and they need to be updated every six months.
The Democratic Alliance, which is the biggest opposition party in the city council, has a caucus led by Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, who calls the needy registry faulty. The new service tax was imposed without enough consultation, according to her and other opponents. When they tried to purchase electricity in July, many prepaid meter owners were ignorant of the additional fee.
“Free basic services in Johannesburg have been very badly implemented,” Ledger says, adding that the funds allocated by Treasury can easily be redirected for general use. “Hands-down, the worst offender—gold medal—is the city of Johannesburg.” In a televised interview on Tuesday, South Africa’s Minister of Electricity and Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, emphasized that municipalities receive funds to subsidize electricity for the poor. “It’s not a funding problem, it’s an execution problem,” he stated.
City Power says it provides 50 kilowatt-hours of free electricity each month to just under 11,000 Johannesburg households with prepaid meters. This number, however, is small compared to the 171,000 households with prepaid meters that the utility considers “non-affluent.” In comparison, Cape Town provides free power to 316,000 people, and the City of Tshwane—which includes the capital Pretoria—provides the service to 155,000 people, according to Statistics South Africa.
Johannesburg claims it covers some electricity costs for about 175,000 households through its Expanded Social Package Program, which operates via City Power and Eskom, the state power utility. Eskom, for its part, says it supplies 6,384 households in Johannesburg and is compensated by the city.
For many residents, however, the process of accessing these benefits is daunting. Sitting in the well-maintained house he bought in 1996, Matubatuba explains the challenges. He lives with his wife, daughter, and dog, and says it is nearly impossible to get on the indigent register. Many of Yeoville’s residents are foreigners from countries like Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and some are undocumented. Even South Africans, Matubatuba says, often feel overwhelmed by the bureaucracy.
“It’s a melting pot; all of Africa is here,” he says, watching children play soccer on the street outside. “People will try, and they will be given the runaround, and then they give up.” Johannesburg’s problems are compounded by its inability to enforce laws, collect revenue, and address the widespread illegal connections to the power grid. City Power says these unlawful connections are why it regularly cuts off power in neighborhoods like Yeoville. In July, activists, including members of Matubatuba’s group led a protest in the city center, expressing their dissatisfaction with electricity services and calling for Gwamanda’s removal.
For now, Matubatuba and his neighbors must endure what he describes as an unwarranted situation. Many buildings in the overcrowded neighborhood have been taken over by squatters, and power outages are contributing to a surge in crime in what is already one of the city’s most dangerous areas. There are “house and people robberies, muggings, hijackings of cars, killings by stabbing and shooting,” Matubatuba says. During outages, people also steal power cables, leading to blackouts that can last even longer.
