South Africa’s richest city pays R21 billion in salaries while it owes Eskom R5.2 billion

The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) continues to spend billions on municipal salaries while struggling to deliver basic services such as keeping the lights on.

The CoJ reportedly pays over R21 billion to its 26,000 employees, an average annual salary of approximately R807,692 per employee.

Salary payments account for as much as 25% of the CoJ’s R84 billion annual budget, more than the R17 billion allocated for electricity and the R7 billion allocated for water.

Much of this goes towards executives at the CoJ’s 13 entities, ten of which pay their senior managers more than the nationally gazetted R3.39 million annual upper limit.

The CoJ has defended this in the past, explaining that since these are “entities” and not government departments, they are not legally subject to this limit.

According to the CoJ’s 2025/26 medium-term budget, City Power paid the highest executive salary out of the 13 entities, with approximately R4.83 million going towards its CEO.

This is higher than President Cyril Ramaphosa’s annual salary of R3.46 million, but is set to decline 34% following City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava’s resignation in March.

Meanwhile, the entity itself faces a budget deficit of almost R20 billion, as well as a R5.2 billion arrear debt which it owes to Eskom.

The power utility announced on 19 May that if the CoJ and City Power continue to default on their debt, it will have no choice but to interrupt power supply to parts of the city.

Eskom has given City Power until 8 July to either settle its debt, or enter into a Distribution Agency Agreement with the utility.

“Eskom maintains it simply cannot be acceptable to the City’s residents and all South Africans that City Power is collecting electricity revenue but failing to pay over Eskom’s share,” Eskom said.

“While Eskom continues to focus on being cost-efficient, escalating municipal and metro arrear debts undermine this.”

Further raises on the cards

The City has proposed major salary increases for some of its entities’ executives in its draft budget for the 2026/27 financial year.

The most notable of these is a 62% increase in the CEO salary at the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC), from R3.38 million up to R5.49 million.

The JPC manages a property portfolio of over 64,000 properties across the Johannesburg municipality, valued at a cumulative R21.6 billion.

Other notable proposed salary increases include a 62% raise for the Joburg Tourism Company CEO, a 19% raise for the CEO of Joburg Theatres, and a 9% raise for the Joburg Water CEO.

Following a News24 report about the proposed salary increases, the JPC released a statement on 19 May to clarify its CEO remuneration policy.

The JPC explained that CEO Musah Makhunga’s executive salary was in line with salary scales and governance frameworks applicable across the CoJ’s entities.

“The current remuneration information relating to the CEO is publicly available on the JPC website and reflects the approved total cost to company package of approximately R3.5 million per annum,” the CoJ said.

“The CEO’s salary is nowhere near the R5.5 million reported in the media. The figure is what is budgeted for employee salaries in the office of the CEO.”

Meanwhile, the incoming CEO of City Power will receive a 34% salary cut following the end of Mashava’s tenure, down to just R3.19 million per annum.

Another salary cut of 12% has been proposed for the CEO of the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), from R3.5 million down to R3.1 million.

The JRA currently faces a maintenance backlog of over R115 billion, far exceeding the entity’s annual budget of R1.8 billion.

Organisations such as the DA have strongly criticised the City’s continuance to pay high executive salaries while failing to deliver on its basic service commitments.