City Power cracks down on R200m unpaid government bills

As 2024 comes to an end, the City of Johannesburg’s power utility City Power intends to clamp down to collect more than R200 million owed by government departments.

The power utility has been taking decisive action in its weekly programme to recover outstanding debts and illegal connections from businesses, residential properties, and even places of worship.

City Power said it will continue its revenue collection campaign until all debt owed by properties is settled.

City Power owed more than R200m

This debt collection does not exclude government departments and entities, which owe the utility a total of R216 774 031.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena told News24 that the utility doesn’t have a policy specifically targeting government departments, but that they are also subject to the City’s credit control policy.

This policy also applies to all customers who use or consume municipal services.

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“The government departments are portfolio managed by the City of Joburg and there are working sessions with the respective departments regarding their municipal debt,” Mangena said.

Quarterly, there is a Debt Management Committee forum chaired by the Gauteng provincial Treasury as an intervention to unblock any challenge relating to the arrears on the accounts.”

In March, Nqobani Mzizi, the senior manager for revenue enhancement at City Power, described the amount of money owed as a “big chunk” to Newzroom Afika.

Difference between normal customers and govt customers

When differentiating between residential or “normal” customers and government departments not paying their debt, Mzizi said with normal customers, what affected the entity was the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said because of the financial strain the pandemic placed on ordinary Johannesburg residents, there was a lot of relaxation about getting people to pay.

“It then unfortunately became so instilled in people that they ended up deciding to not pay even more than they were not paying before Covid,” he said.

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Mzizi said that when City Power applies pressure on government departments, they often comply.

“I really cannot tell you why they did not pay, but we do follow our process of informing them that ‘Look guys, we are owing us x amount of money’ and we send them notifications and pre-termination notices, and they do not come back to pay,” he said.

To avoid having debt problems from government departments, Mzizi said the issue requires more cooperation and engagement between the departments.

More engagement needed

“Those government departments should come to the party and engage with us. That is why when we put the pressure and the fire under their feet, they come to the party,” he said.

City Power spokesperson Robinson Nqola has not responded to several requests for comment on this story. Any update will be included once received.