The Johannesburg high court has issued an order stopping the Joburg metro from cutting power at the upmarket Sasol Pension Fund building pending final determination of a R5.2m rates dispute.
“The parties will schedule a round-table meeting within seven days of the [fund] supplementing its dispute or the lapsing of the time frame determined in [a Promotion of Access to Information Act request] for purposes of debating and possibly settling any disputed amount,” the court order reads.
Several high-profile tenants of the Baker Street building in the Rosebank suburb of Johannesburg were due to be cut off by the metro when the owners of the building, the Sasol Pension Fund, rushed to court.
The Joburg metro had served the fund, part of the JSE-listed global petrochemical company, with a 17-year backdated bill.
The metro gave the fund 14 days in April to pay the R5.2m or have water and electricity cut from the Rosebank property.
Standard Bank trust offices and restaurant and food outlet Fournos are among the high-profile tenants in the building.
Judge Leicester Adams said should the parties not find common ground during the out-of-court talks, the matter could be brought to court again.
Joburg and Tshwane metros have for years been in the spotlight over disputed bills by residents and businesses decrying unreasonably high bills.
In 2010, the municipality announced the implementation of a new internal system aimed to ensure accurate municipal bills. Yet, the municipality has continued to face legal battles over billing problems.
Rates and billing problems are likely to become a central point in the 2026 municipal elections in most metros.
The fund’s property investment officer Rupert Pohl, said in court papers its account for the property were fully paid in March when the metro sent a further bill that it owed R5.2m in property rates.
“The disputed amount that the city wishes to claim is more than the combined annual property rates for the subject property in terms of the current rates policy of the city,” Pohl said.
He said the fund attempted to communicate with the municipality to understand how the fund had a debt of R5.2m in March.
“The only information that can be gleaned from the email of the deputy director for transaction processing rates is that the calculation of the disputed amount dates back to 2008, more than 17 years prior to the March property rates account.”
The March rates account was the first notice of the R5.2m debt to the fund, Pohl said.
“I submit that no reasonable ratepayer could be expected to understand how the disputed amount was determined in [the] March rates account.”
The fund filed an urgent application on April 14 to interdict the municipality from bringing its business to a standstill.
The fund also filed an application through the Promotion of Access to Information Act to the metro to trace how the municipality determined the disputed debt.
“The city unilaterally does as it deems fit and now holds [the fund to] ransom to make payment of additional rates in respect of which the [fund] may very well not be indebted to the city.
“The city, clearly, abuses the very privileged position that it holds as an organ of the state, specifically being in charge of the services to the community.”
In September 2024 Joburg metro lost a bill dispute it lodged against Mir-Air Prop, a company in Roodepoort, in which acting high court judge Stephan van Nieuwenhuizen described the metro’s billing system as “chaotic”.
“It is clear that the CoJ [metro] has not the faintest idea of what is going on [on] the ground and that its accounting system seems to take cognisance of fictitious facts,” the judgment reads.
The company had contested the bill and consumption readings by the municipality and provided its own electricity readings, which the court found to be correct.
“The implementation of the CoJ’s own accounting system seems to be chaotic, erratic and, at best, random, in terms of the outcomes achieved,” the judgment reads.
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