Almost 15 000 City Power customers were incorrectly charged a monthly service and network charge in May and June.
Residents who were charged additionally were previously paying a Lifeline Tariff, where no service and network charges were made.
These additional charges are being reversed by City Power, the City of Johannesburg’s power utility. Communication was sent to customers via SMS, statements and the City Power Call Centre voice recording system.
Now residents need to register for the Extended Social Package (ESP) and then qualify for a Lifeline Tariff.
READ: City Power outages soon to be a thing of the past
Nico de Jager, MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services explained that the reason for the incorrect charges was because Lifeline Tariff users were migrated to the normal tariff structure.
“Prior to the 2015/2016 financial year, City Power had a Lifeline Tariff for customers who had a monthly consumption of less than 500 kWh.
Before the introduction of the Extended Social Package, City Power used the Lifeline Tariff to grant qualifying customers access to free basic electricity. However, this manner of determining the qualification of free basic electricity was not fair, as it did not consider the poverty status and affordability [for] the customer.”
With the implementation of the Expanded Social Package (ESP) package, this tariff was discontinued and all customers had to apply for their free electricity through the ESP programme.
Recently City Power noticed there were still customers who were receiving a Lifeline Tariff. They were subsequently migrated to the City’s ordinary tariff without consideration of the impact this would have on some of the poorest residents, De Jager said.
“I have met with officials from City Power, who acknowledge that there should have been adequate communication on this matter.”
Now what?
- All the affected customers’ bills, where service and network charges were raised, will be rectified and reversed as soon as possible
- The current customers who are registered with the ESP and are using less than 500 kWh a month will be required to apply for a Lifeline Tariff and will be charged prepaid charges without any service and network charges
- All new applications and reapplications will be done and approved on an annual basis.
“Last week, we met with the ESP and Social Development team within the City and agreed that all monthly applications for ESP benefits will be used to check for customers using below 500 kWh which would qualify them for the Lifeline Tariff.
“We will continue doing all we can to ensure we improve the services which we provide to residents and continue to ease the burden of our poorest residents.”
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