{"id":43447,"date":"2026-08-21T18:21:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T16:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=43447"},"modified":"2026-08-21T18:21:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T16:21:27","slug":"sas-johannesburg-clears-328m-eskom-debt","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sas-johannesburg-clears-328m-eskom-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"SA&#8217;s Johannesburg clears $328m Eskom debt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) Johannesburg has dodged a major power crisis after settling a massive R5.25 billion ($328 million) debt with state utility Eskom, putting an end to months of legal threats that put the country&#8217;s economic engine room at risk of severe power cuts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Eskom confirmed this Friday that it received the final installment, officially closing out a bitter billing feud that escalated in May when the utility threatened to throttle electricity to the city. With the money in the bank, Eskom has dropped its legal proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The breakthrough comes after months of tense mediation led by Electricity Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa, who stepped in alongside city officials and local distributor City Power to broker a deal. On top of wiping the slate clean, all parties agreed to set up ring-fenced accounts and tighter payment controls to make sure the city doesn&#8217;t run up a bill like this again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters\/ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43448,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-43447","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Johannesburg clears billions in Eskom arrears to avert blackout crisis","published_date":"2026-08-21 18:21:11","news_description":"Johannesburg clears billions in Eskom arrears to avert blackout crisis","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43449,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43447\/revisions\/43449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}