South Africa’s richest city writes off R33.58 billion

The City of Johannesburg wrote off R33.58 billion in irrecoverable trade and other receivables, as well as unauthorised, irregular, and wasteful expenditures.

This was revealed in the City of Johannesburg’s 2024/25 Integrated Annual Report, which was published on Thursday, 28 May 2026.

The report showed a 44% decline in overall Unauthorised, Irregular, Fruitless and Wasteful (UIFW) expenditure balances.

These balances dropped from R23.7 billion in 2024 to R13.3 billion in 2025, a substantial reduction despite the incurrence of new expenditures.

However, it was not because the city did something good. Instead, it was because of council-approved write-offs following investigations into legacy matters.

• Unauthorised Expenditure: R18.4 billion written off.

• Irregular Expenditure: R4.4 billion written off.

• Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure: R1.3 billion written off.

The Auditor-General noted that these write-offs do not prove that future non-compliance has been prevented.

“It reflects the closure of legacy matters through proper governance processes,” the Auditor-General said in the report.

“The forward task is to maintain the strengthened compliance and supply chain control environment that has enabled these investigations to be concluded.”

The aim should be to reduce the inflow of new unauthorised, irregular, and wasteful expenditures into the system in step with the run-off of historical balances.

City of Johannesburg’s irrecoverable trade and other receivables

The City of Johannesburg’s annual report further showed that it wrote off R9.48 billion in irrecoverable trade and other receivables.

It explained that there were many causes which forced it to write off such a large amount in one year.

• Inefficient systems that support billing, including customer relations management and telephony.

• Limited customer awareness and customer responsibility to pay municipal bills.

• Manual credit control enforcement mechanisms.

• Missing customer records impacting successful invoicing and statement delivery.

• Ineffective payment arrangements, which delayed debt recovery.

High levels of unemployment and an increasing number of residents qualifying for indigent support also put pressure on the city.

The 2025 Audit Report for the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality stated that these write-offs resulted in a material loss for the city.

This is not where the bad news ends. The report pointed out that debtors’ collection days are outside the required norms.

This, combined with creditors’ payment days exceeding 30 days, indicates significant liquidity challenges.

It raised substantial doubt about the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality’s ability to continue as a going concern.