The Johannesburg Children's Memorial Institute has power once again, but is by no means in the clear. (Photo: Children's Memorial Institute / Facebook)Electricity was restored to the Children’s Memorial Institute in Parktown, Johannesburg on Tuesday, 22 September, ending a 20-day blackout – less than 48 hours after Daily Maverick revealed that municipal revenue officials had overruled Mayor Dada Morero’s public commitment to reconnect the campus.
Despite the power returning, management and non-profit leaders on site remain on high alert, warning that the underlying intergovernmental debt crisis remained completely unresolved and that no formal guarantees had been provided to protect the child welfare hub from future cutoffs.
The sudden U-turn by municipal authorities follows intense pressure after Daily Maverick exposed how Morero’s explicit promise to restore power – made during a personal visit to the Children’s Memorial Institute campus on Wednesday, 16 September – was promptly blocked by City Power and Revenue officials.
The following day, City Power officials arrived on site demanding a signed Acknowledgement of Debt (AoD) and a payment agreement from the Gauteng Department of Health before any switch would be flipped, effectively stalling the mayor’s intervention.
Claudine Ribeiro, chairperson of the Children’s Memorial Institute, expressed great relief among the campus’ child welfare organisations, but noted that the total absence of written confirmation left them in perpetual uncertainty.
“We have no written guarantee, so we continue to live in fear that we could be disconnected at any time and that both water and electricity could be disconnected,” Ribeiro said. “The root cause of these issues has to be addressed so this can once and for all be finalised.”
A 20-day standoff over R159m debt
Power was cut on 3 September over R159.2-million in accumulated provincial utility arrears held across Gauteng Health master accounts. The resulting three-week blackout severely disrupted critical health and social services across the complex:
Twenty-two child-welfare NPOs and 365 special-needs learners at the Johannesburg School for Autism were left without electricity.
Clinicians at the Children’s Memorial Institute Paediatric Dental Clinic – the sole state dental facility for children across the Johannesburg inner city, Hillbrow, Yeoville, and surrounding areas – were forced to treat walk-in emergency cases involving acute pain and trauma using cellphone torches.
The provincial hospital laundry facility on site was forced to operate continuously on backup generators, burning through 1,000 litres of diesel per day – at a cost of over R30,000 daily – to maintain sterile linen processing for Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital, two other hospitals, and 13 clinics.
Over a century of care caught in administrative crossfire
Established in 1923 as a living memorial to the children who died in World War 1, the Children’s Memorial Institute precinct has operated for more than a century as a centre for child healthcare, protection, and advocacy in Gauteng.
The heritage-listed Parktown complex houses a collaborative ecosystem, with NGOs such as Childline, the Teddy Bear Foundation, and the Johannesburg Parent and Child Counselling Centre alongside provincial clinical facilities.
Despite two High Court judgments ordering relevant Gauteng provincial government departments to resolve internal utility account allocations, the Children’s Memorial Institute remains caught in the crossfire between defaulting provincial departments and municipal debt enforcement, leaving the long-term operational stability of its child-welfare services in jeopardy until a formal inter-governmental settlement is signed. DM
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