The City of Johannesburg has also taken a bold step and cut services at Sandton City which reportedly owes R158m. Mayor Mpho Phalatse and her delegation yesterday toured the area and also visited the Radisson Blu hotel where the water supply was disconnected for non-payment of R14m.

A report on the IoL site notes that the municipality said there was debt of more than R38bn owed to the city and Sandton City was the biggest culprit.

‘When we terminate services today, it should come as little to no surprise to the account holders, given that we have sent pre-termination notices in one form or another, warning them of their debt to the municipality and the promise to cut them off,’ Phalatse said.

She added that the operations would continue throughout the city in the coming weeks.

The City of Tshwane has collected about R300m since it started its campaign to disconnect electricity and water from more than 600 businesses and government departments for defaulting on their electricity, water and property rates bills.

Defaulters included the police headquarters’ building that owed R5.1m, Pretoria News offices owed R1m for unpaid electricity, the Gautrain offices that allegedly owed R10m, and a shopping centre in Sinoville which owed R13m for electricity and R3m for water.

City Press has learnt that Pretoria News paid R650 000 on Monday and so avoided being cut off.

In total, customers owed the city R17bn.

A breakdown of the figure includes R1.3bn owed by government departments and embassies, R4bn by businesses and R8bn by residential customers.

Full City Press report

Full report on the IoL site