Pay your bills, warns Eskom

ACCORDING to Eskom KwaZulu-Natal’s general manager, Monde Bala, the utility is losing more than R5 billion a year due to non-payment and other forms of electricity theft. Bala warns KwaZulu-Natal customers, residential and business, to pay their electricity bills before they face heavy consequences.

This follows the plans the utility has to vigorously disconnect and remove installations of those customers who are not paying their bills and stealing electricity.

“Non-payment, meter tampering and illegal vending by our direct customers is causing Eskom to lose a lot of revenue. While illegal connections and other leading forms of electricity theft are common, non-payment has sharply increased and is taking root in many parts of the country,” he said.

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Bala and his team are fighting electricity theft using a new way of investigating, which incorporates technical meter auditing, supported by criminal investigations and prosecution by law-enforcement agencies.

As a result of this new approach, he said a large number of incidents of non-payment, meter tampering and illegal vending, as well as other forms of electricity theft, were uncovered in the province. This led to the issuing of numerous disconnection orders, tamper fees, arrests and prosecutions.

Bala again highlighted the important role played by law-enforcement agencies and the public in the ongoing fight against electricity and infrastructure theft and encouraged people to use the Crime Line number 32211 to anonymously SMS their tip-offs on electricity theft and non-payment.

Or, people can report on the Crime Line website, www.crimeline.co.za or the Eskom reporting line, 0800 112 722, which is a toll free number.