City Power’s ‘actual’ readings on broken meter

Louise Jooste is the bookkeeper of Xlondi Trading in Burger Street in Roodepoort, and spoke to the Record on behalf of her Chinese employer Wu Guan about their unique, frustrating problem.

Unlike most of the other complaints where City Power’s billing crisis is concerned, Guan is not worried about getting unrealistically high bills but in his case getting suspiciously low ones.

His bill for December was R705 and R698 for January. The Record enquired from similar-sized businesses in the area and they all pay an average of between R2 500 and R3 000 a month.

It also states clearly on their statements that actual readings have been taken from their meter J9225. This would have been ideal if meter J255 had not been broken since 2011. The Record has photographic evidence that the meter is not operating at all.

Furthermore, on behalf of Guan, Jooste claims that regardless of the fact that they have reported the problem numerous times and received more than one reference number, nothing has yet been done. She alleges that one day out of desperation one of the Guans approached a City Power vehicle that was parked outside the store and asked them please to take a look. The City Power employees allegedly charged her R300 cash and said they would send out someone, which never happened.

The business owners are worried that when the problem is sorted out they will have to pay thousands of rands in outstanding charges that were not captured while the meter was not working.

The Record will forward the issue to City Power.