City of Tshwane’s response to billing discrepancies

After publication of an article in The Citizen yesterday about a small Centurion business which spends about R17 000 on electricity every month, the City of Tshwane has responded.

The business, Productive Systems, got a nasty shock when it received a R1.2 million bill for under-recovery of power costs since 2015.

In answer to questions, the business said the city “determines the scale factor in line with the measurement/technical standard”.

It said in relation to the issue: “The electricity usage/consumption through the monitoring system was identified with lower than normal consumption pattern on the account and went to site to investigate.

“On investigation, the revenue protection team became aware that work had taken place on the CT/VTs (current transformer and voltage transformer) ratios which resulted in the wrong scaling factor.”

These ratios are crucial to converting the reading of electricity usage into billing – using an incorrect ratio could result in material billing variances.

The city’s service provider, Total Utilities Management Services, indicated earlier the ratios were provided by the city and merely applied what was provided – and they appeared to have been changed.

The city said: “The same was confirmed by the electricity metering section that the CT/VTs had been changed for it was plausible that the ratio had to be adjusted to reflect information on the CT/VT plate. The conclusion on the adjustment is still pending, the client was informed of the same.”

The city said there “are a number of reasons why CTs and VTs are changed for operational reasons. As well as CTs or VTs failing as part of their operational end-of-life, CTs and VTs can be [and are] tampered with or exposed to external influences such as lightning strikes.

“In such instances, these devices fail and have to be replaced.

“Adjustments can only be made once the devices are replaced and the account normalised, in line with the approved electricity by-law of 2013. It outlines how and when these adjustments are calculated.”

The city said the issue of Onderstepoort was still pending and the matter of the debit adjustment to the private individual’s prepaid meter relates to meter tampering.

– Citizen reporter

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