A municipal electricity fault is reported to the municipality that bills you for electricity, and the report needs your meter number and an exact address to be actionable.
ContactDetails.co.za is an independent directory. We are not any of the companies listed here and cannot act on your behalf. Everything on this page is a routing aid so you reach the right official channel with the right information in hand.
Who actually handles this
The municipality, if it is your electricity supplier. Where Eskom supplies you directly, the fault is Eskom’s. Your electricity bill tells you which, and contacting the wrong one costs you the whole call.
What to do, in order
- Confirm it is a fault rather than load shedding. Check the schedule before reporting.
- Check whether the whole street is affected or only your property. A single-property outage often points at your own connection or main switch.
- Check your own distribution board first. A tripped main is common and is not a municipal fault.
- Report with the meter number, the exact address, and what you observed, including any bang, flash or burning smell.
- Say immediately if there is a hanging or sparking cable. That is an emergency and is prioritised.
- Take the reference number and follow up on it.
What to have ready before you make contact
- Your electricity account and meter number.
- The exact street address and the pole or mini-substation number if visible.
- Whether neighbours are affected.
- When it started, and any sound or smell at the time.
Verified electricity supplier and metro routes
Every route in this table was taken from the organisation’s own official contact page and checked on 21 August 2026. Contact details change, so confirm on the official site before relying on one for anything urgent.
| What it is for | Contact |
|---|---|
| Eskom contact centre | 0860 037 566 |
| Cape Town call centre (option 3 for electricity, 24/7) | 0860 103 089 |
| eThekwini electricity contact centre (toll free) | 080 311 1111 |
| eThekwini electricity faults email | [email protected] |
| eThekwini electricity WhatsApp | 064 761 7930 |
| Ekurhuleni service call centre | 0860 543 000 |
| Tshwane call centre | 012 358 9999 |
| Johannesburg general | 0860 562 874 |
Who actually supplies your electricity
- Your municipality, if your electricity appears on your municipal account alongside water and rates. Faults, accounts and meters are then the municipality’s, and Eskom holds no record of you.
- Eskom directly, if Eskom bills you. This is common in areas without municipal reticulation, and there the municipality has no record of your connection.
- Your landlord or body corporate, where a property is sub-metered. The account is theirs, and the supplier will not deal with you on it.
- Load shedding is none of the above. It is a scheduled national interruption, not a fault, and reporting it as one adds to the queue that genuine faults sit in.
Your bill answers this in seconds, and it decides every other step. Contacting the wrong supplier means speaking to an organisation that has no record of your connection at all.
Common mistakes that cost time
- Reporting during load shedding without checking the schedule.
- Not checking your own main switch and earth leakage first.
- Reporting to Eskom when the municipality bills you, which means no record of your connection.
- Logging repeat reports instead of following one reference, which fragments the history.
The scam to watch for
A hanging, sparking or fallen cable is an emergency. Keep well away from it, keep others away, and report it as an emergency rather than a routine fault. Never let anyone who is not from the utility handle it, and never pay someone at your gate to reconnect supply.
If it is not resolved
The Consumer Goods and Services Ombud handles unresolved consumer complaints against participating suppliers, free of charge to the consumer. It also expects you to have gone through the supplier’s own complaints process first. The National Consumer Commission is the statutory consumer authority and handles matters that fall outside an ombud scheme’s remit.
Escalation works on evidence. Keep a short written log of every contact: the date, the channel you used, the name of the person you spoke to and the reference number you were given. Every formal complaints process asks for exactly that history, and having it ready is usually the difference between a fast resolution and starting over.
| What it is for | Contact |
|---|---|
| CGSO consumer complaints call centre | 0860 000 272 |
| CGSO WhatsApp | 081 335 3005 |
| CGSO general email | [email protected] |
| National Consumer Commission contact centre | 012 065 1940 |
| National Consumer Commission enquiries email | [email protected] |
Related contact pages
- Municipal Electricity Fault Contact Number
- Municipalities
- Lala Ngoxolo Contact Details
- Burst Pipe Contact Number Municipality
- Fnb Ewallet Contact Number
- Ewallet Contact Number
- Report Cable Theft Municipality
- Municipality Contact Details South Africa
- How to verify a contact number before you use it
Frequently asked questions
How long does a fault take to fix?
It depends whether it is your connection, a street cable or a substation. Ask which it is when you report, because that is what sets the timeframe.
What if only my house is off?
Check your own main switch and earth leakage first. A single-property outage is often the property’s own installation rather than a municipal fault.
Who do I contact if Eskom supplies me directly?
Eskom, on the contact centre number above. The municipality has no record of an Eskom-billed connection.
The contact routes on this page were checked against each organisation’s official source on 21 August 2026. Where a detail has changed, the official source is always the authority.