eThekwini Municipality has urged residents and businesses to use the city's new digital platforms to register their monthly electricity readings amid soaring estimates.
The digital approach is aimed at curbing inaccurate readings, reducing staff shortages and curbing theft.
Durbanites have long complained about rising electricity bills and inaccurate meter readings — often going months without any official reading and then suddenly slapped with a high bill. This, says the municipality, will be curbed through use of the digital platform.
The platform, accessible through the eThekwini website or the downloadable app simplifies the submission of meter readings and fault reporting. The measures are part of a package of interventions by the city to improve its service delivery — with electricity a key component in its battles.
Running challenges between city officials and cable thieves have resulted in the City constantly coming up with new ways to curb the theft. The demand for street lights to make areas safer at night versus cable theft by professional criminals as soon as this happens is amongst the challenges facing the city.
An investigation by IOL around the city and discussions with officials within the Municipality also revealed another challenge adding to the city's troubles.
Illegal underground cable work by private businesses often affected the power supply to entire areas — with blame then directed at the Municipality.
“We are often called to look at causes of power outages in areas and as a technician I go out only to find that our cables have been dug up by private firms without any permission or consultation with us,” a City technician who asked not to be named told IOL.
“These include telecommunications firms or construction companies at a new development for example.
“They hit our cables while doing work on the site don’t report this knowing full well someone will call the Municipality to blame us for a power outage. We must then come and figure out where the problem is.
“Sometimes it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack because we don't know the cause and have to dig to discover our cables were tampered with and there's nobody you can hold to account so we have to take the blame, fix it and just do what we can,” the technician told IOL.
IOL