Joburg CBD Property Owners Spend Millions on Diesel as Power Outages Drive Tenants Away

Property owners in Johannesburg's CBD say they are at their wits' end as repeated electricity failures leave residential buildings and businesses without power and water for days at a time.

Marshalltown, home to the Central Substation that supplies large parts of the Johannesburg CBD, has been particularly hard hit. An outage tracker based on City Power reports recorded 10 outages affecting the suburb over the past 90 days, four of them linked to the substation. Some inner-city residents have endured outages totalling about 17 days, only to lose electricity again within hours of supply being restored.

The Johannesburg Property Owners and Managers Association (JPOMA) warned in a strongly worded statement that repeated electricity failures were threatening years of investment and regeneration in the inner city. Executive head Angela Rivers said property owners who had invested heavily in buying and renovating ageing CBD buildings were increasingly frustrated that prolonged power and water failures were undermining that work.

The costs are mounting. One JPOMA member reported spending R1.115 million on diesel over two months across three residential buildings, while another estimated spending R2.5 million during about 14 days of generator operation across a portfolio, and a third reported spending R200,000 on diesel over two months. Generators in many residential buildings are being used primarily to keep lifts, common-area lighting and water pumps running while tenants remain without normal electricity in their flats.

JPOMA said electricity failures were also becoming water failures: where municipal pressure is insufficient, electric pumps are needed to move water to upper floors, and once stored supplies are exhausted residents can be left without water for drinking, washing and sanitation. Rivers said vacancy levels among affected property owners had risen from about 3% to about 20% over two months, while one building had lost 20 tenants in a single month.

Alan Tait of Ithemba Property, which owns 16 buildings in the Johannesburg CBD, said most of its buildings had been without electricity for the past few weeks. The company installed generators for reception areas, lighting and security, and provided gas stoves and freezers in some buildings to assist tenants. "Tenants are angry. They are losing food, and the cost of diesel and gas is exorbitant," Tait said. JPOMA's record of a 28 August engagement with City Power lists ageing infrastructure, previous fire damage, temporary supply arrangements, reduced back-up capacity and continuing theft and security challenges among the issues raised.