The City of Johannesburg has officially admitted to owing Telkom R4.8m in outstanding invoices, but denies that a crippling, citywide telecommunications and server blackout stems from financial distress.

The Johannesburg municipality will get fully restored mobile and telecommunications services only at the end of August, leaving citizens fighting to pay accounts and access municipal amenities.

Blaming its unpaid R4.8-million Telkom tab on a routine financial year-end shutdown on 30 June, the City claims payment processing was paused while invoices were accrued for the new financial year. It confirmed that full service won't be restored until the end of August as officials rush to switch to another service provider under the Treasury's RT15 framework.

Read more Joburg blames 'service provider migration' for Telkom mobile and landline cutoffs fiasco July 30, 2026 The admission came as the metro plunged into further chaos on Tuesday, with central server failures and a complete blackout of the main municipal website, www.joburg.org.za, knocking out billing and account portals citywide.

The systemic network failure left staff helpless and led to hundreds of ratepaying residents being turned away at customer service centres across all seven regions, including the City's flagship Thuso House Revenue Centre in Braamfontein.

Confronted with the total collapse of its central 011 407 landline range -- which links the Metro Centre, regional offices, and executive leadership -- the City offered...