Pretoria - The City of Tshwane will in the next few weeks visit several estates where residents are in arrears or have tampered with the meters.
According to the metro, the estates include Sable Hills Waterfront Estate, Eldo Park (Eldoraigne), Kosmosdal, Silver Lakes Estate, Irene Farm Village, Amberfield Valley, Sunderland Ridge, Thatchfield Estate, Thatchfield Hills, and Centurion Golf Estate.
Last week, illegal overhead electricity connections were disconnected in the west of the capital and officials also went to the Copperleaf Golf Estate following suspicions of illegal connections.
City spokesperson Selby Bokaba said this was part of the City’s revenue collection campaign.
“The City of Tshwane has identified households in various estates whose accounts are in arrears.
“On Tuesday, the city had a successful revenue collection campaign in Copperleaf Estate, Centurion, which is one of the identified estates.
“The top 25 accounts in arrears within the estate range between R200 000 and R500 000. From the 600 accounts that the City had initially targeted, electricity supply to 96 customers who are in arrears was disconnected.
“Water restrictions due to arrears were actioned in 156 households. With regards to electricity meters, 30 were found to have been tampered with, while 279 were in good condition. The City also replaced 28 conventional meters with prepaid meters.
“In Sable Hills Waterfront Estate, the city audited 298 accounts and found 285 meters to be in good condition while 11 were found to have been tampered with. Two conventional meters were replaced with prepaid. There were no accounts in arrears that had to be disconnected.
“It must be emphasised that tampering fees will be levied to all meters found tampered or illegally connected.
“The City would like to once more encourage consumers who are illegally connected to the electricity and water network to apply for amnesty to avoid fines and criminal charges. The amnesty period which started last month will end on September 30. Residents and business owners who want to apply for amnesty can download forms from the City’s website, there is an icon on the landing page which will direct you to the amnesty page where you will be able to download the amnesty application form. A dedicated email address has been created for this purpose where the forms can be submitted,” Bokaba added.
Resident Mandla Masande said: “This is good because these guys in these estates have been getting away with tampering of meters while the City looked at us as if we are the only ones.”
Natalie Smith said: “The City prematurely accused people at Copperleaf of stealing electricity, but when they arrived there they found the people’s electricity bills dropped because they moved to other sources of energy. “Many installed solar panels. Besides the high costs of electricity, load shedding made them give up on conventional electricity.”
Matome Chabalala said the City must take radical action and disconnect electricity in all informal settlements and every home where people bypassed the meter if it seeks to see revenue growth because targeting a few homes was barely scraping the surface.
Pretoria News