Along with members of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department and City Power security staff, representatives from the Revenue Protection Unit of City Power arrived at Curro School in Noordwyk, Midrand, early on Tuesday, June 23. The Curro Sagewood campus’s electricity supply was quickly cut off. At least for an hour, the school, which is a part of one of the most well-known private education groups in South Africa, went dark.
What transpired was not a low-key administrative issue. With statements flying from both sides, a High Court intervention, and inquiries that directly addressed how billing accountability functions between institutions and the city utilities that serve them, it turned into a public dispute.
The version from City Power is fairly simple. The utility claimed that the Curro Sagewood campus had unpaid electricity bills totaling R9.3 million, with the debt allegedly accumulating since 2023. In a larger sweep, four high-value properties were targeted, including the school. Together, those four accounts owed City Power R38.1 million. Charles Tlouane, the acting CEO, publicly stated that it was “surprising” that a company with Curro’s financial situation had permitted such a debt to accumulate without trying to soften his remarks. They had made an effort, according to City Power. repeatedly. They eventually became impatient.
Curro responded quickly and firmly. The group claimed that it owed City Power nothing at all and that the disputed billing figures were the consequence of mistakes made by the utility rather than the school’s failure to pay. Curro claims that even though the disagreement was actively brought up prior to the disconnection, City Power proceeded. The administration of the school even contacted the lawyers for the City of Johannesburg. The fact that power was restored in less than an hour begs the question, “Would reconnection have happened that quickly if the debt were as clear-cut as City Power initially stated?”
Observing this unfold gives the impression that both sides are speaking the truth as they see it. Large public utilities frequently handle billing disputes in this way: information stored on internal systems doesn’t always correspond to what the customer has been charged or paid. When City Power stated that the complete account history, including reconciliations and disputed billing components, was still being reviewed at the time of the disconnection, it was acknowledging this. That admission is noteworthy.
The institution at the heart of this case is what makes it memorable. Curro is not a community school that is having difficulties. It is widely considered to be financially stable and runs dozens of campuses throughout South Africa. The escalation of the situation to the point of armed officials and a grid disconnection indicates a communication breakdown on both sides of the table that ought to have been discovered much sooner.
City Power argued that the action was legal under the Municipal Systems Act and the credit control bylaws of the City of Johannesburg. That might hold up legally. However, it is more difficult to defend in the court of public opinion the optics of cutting power to a school full of students in a coordinated operation involving armed police over a dispute the school claims to have already raised formally.
The financial strain on South Africa’s electricity utilities is severe. That is not insignificant; it is real. The capacity of City Power to maintain the network and address outages is hampered by unpaid accounts throughout Johannesburg. If they are institutional and commercial defaulters, they do exacerbate that issue. There is merit to City Power’s claim regarding the systemic effects of nonpayment.
However, if the school’s account of what happened stands up to scrutiny, the Curro case would represent something different: an enforcement action against an institution that had brought up a dispute through the correct channels without complete verification. That’s a different issue. And now that litigation has started, the courts will probably have to resolve it.
How this is resolved in the end is still unknown. Documents have been submitted, the billing records are being examined, and both parties indicate that they are willing to work together. It’s already evident that the morning those officials arrived in Noordwyk showed something about how easily a billing dispute can turn into something much more public than either party likely intended, and how brittle the relationship between big organizations and public utilities can be when communication breaks down.
