As of this week, Joburg utilities will cost more than 50% more than they cost four years ago — despite worse delivery of services.
On Tuesday, the latest round of annual hikes kicks in for property rates, electricity, water, sanitation and refuse.
The cost of basic services for a family of four has risen by almost double the pace of inflation in a metro riddled with potholes, power cuts and growing discontent.
The City of Johannesburg’s most recent 2025/26 medium-term budget statement shows how those living in a R300,000 property, using 350kWh electricity and 20kl water (of which 50kWh and 6kl water are free) have gone from a monthly utilities bill of R854.85 in 2021 to R1,402.59 as of July. This “indigent” category is not charged for sanitation and refuse removal.
In the “affordable” bracket (a R500,000 property, 500kWh electricity and 25kl water), utilities have risen from R2,879.94 a month in 2021 to R4,366.16 from this week.
The “middle income” range (a R700,000 property, 1,000 kWh electricity and 30kl water) has gone from R4,684.83 a month in 2021 to R7,150.23.
The medium-term budget statement does not include figures for properties valued at more than R700,000.
Then there are the levies. All brackets will be paying a monthly water levy of R65.08 from July, up from R33.97 in 2023.
The electricity levy is R930,37 for affordable and middle income brackets, up from R668 in 2021. The indigent bracket is exempt from the levy.
The city's last three increases over a four-year period amount to 53.81% for “middle income” households; 51.61% for “affordable” households and 64.07% for “indigent” households.
The reasons for the steep increases, according to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) executive manager Julius Kleynhans include growing administrative costs incurred by the city compounded by a bloated wage bill.
“In business, when times are tight you cut costs and look for alternative income. You streamline, you let people go or you take a pay cut. But in government where you have the bargaining council and unions, there are pay increases every year, perks and bonuses go up and inefficiencies continue due to the assumption that there will always be money. You overpay for supplies — everything from toilet rolls to R40 bottles of water,” he said.
The owner of a R700,000 property using 1,000 kWh electricity and 30kl water a month now pays R7,150 a month, up from R4,684 in 2021. That's a 52% increase.
Kleynhans said numerous appeals against the 2018 valuation rolls remained unresolved, and annual rates increases along with municipal property valuations calculated every five years are “exorbitant and unjustified”.
“People who have invested R150,000 in a solar power system are reluctant to declare this to the municipality because it will be added to their property valuation and their rates will be hiked,” said Kleynhans.
Julia Fish of the Johannesburg Community Action Network (JoburgCAN) is a community organiser, mobilisation strategist and part of the Presidential Joint Working Group (PJWG). She has a more positive view and believes in the work under way to turn around Johannesburg’s performance. She is convinced that things will improve in the next planning session and budget adjustment process.
“People in general are fed up, they are paying attention and getting involved. They’re not asking for permission but just fixing things themselves. They’re looking to the next government elections, and they’re realising that through the Integrated Development Plan they can write their own plans,” Fish said, explaining how in the past few people participated or even knew of the existence of the IDP.
She advised against frustrated ratepayers resorting to rates boycotts as there was no legal way of succeeding with them.
“There are more subtle ways, like we’ve seen in Vereeniging where residents declared a dispute against the municipality over a period when they did not get waste removal services. They calculated the cost of the services they didn’t get and withheld that money. And then they fixed their own potholes and charged the council,” Fish said.
The actions, she said, had resulted in 42 cases ending up in court, with the residents winning all of them.
“But Joburg is more functional and it would be extremely difficult to accurately calculate the costs of things like water throttling. Withholding money needs to be extremely organised and can be illegal and dangerous if not done properly,” she warned.
“But I do think we’re about to turn things around. I sit in the Presidential Working Group meetings, and City Power and Joburg Water. I’ve witnessed the ring-fencing of funds and seen how money billed is going back to the entities. There will be some hiccups with the next couple of bills, but I am confident that from October we will see a massive improvement.”
This, she said, was the result of “renewed accountability, transparency and national government breathing down their necks” along with the support of civic organisations like Jozi my Jozi and the Johannesburg Crisis Alliance.
Dr Tracy Ledger, leader of the Just Transition programme at the Public Affairs Research Institute (Pari), has analysed the institutional failure in South Africa’s public sector, and how it undermines the state’s ability to design and implement a just transition in electricity, water and food.
In the “Affordability of Basic Services for South African Households” report released this month by Pari, Ledger and researcher Nonhlanhla Mathibela found lowering the costs of providing basic services and lower tariffs (particularly through lower electricity costs and a revised basket of basic services) was necessary.
The report is the country's first empirical study of affordable services, and looks at the affordability of 2024 tariffs in the main metros, comparing them with household disposable income after purchasing food.
The conclusion was that if — after paying for food, water and electricity — a household was left less than R30 a day for every other expense, the electricity and water were not affordable. And this was the case for 40% of poor households across the country.
“In cities like Joburg where you have these above-inflation increases, the problem gets worse,” Ledger said.
Yunus Chamda of the Joburg Crisis Alliance said they were concerned that the tariff increases were placing a severe burden on residents, especially low-income households.
“These hikes come amid unreliable service delivery and limited access to indigent support, deepening financial strain, reducing affordability and widening inequality. The city has to make huge improvements in service delivery to lessen the discontent,” he said.
The City of Joburg’s group finance report on the outcomes of public consultation on the proposed 2025/26 budget and revenue raising measures filed last month noted that there was increased ratepayer activity in “similar municipalities such as eThekwini, Msunduzi and the City of Cape Town”.
It listed Cape Town’s increases at 7.96% on rates; 2% on steeped electricity tariffs (but 38.7% on fixed tariffs) and 7% on refuse removal with policy changes to property values to affect water and sanitation costs. eThekwini tariff increases were 6.5% for rates; 12.7% for electricity; 15% for water; 13% for sanitation; and 6.6% for refuse removal.
Msunduzi’s increases are 2% on rates; 36% for electricity; 13,5% for both water and sanitation; and 7% for refuse removal.
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