Resident’s electricity billing woes
WELTEVREDEN PARK - Resident with prepaid metre still being billed for electricity not used
Dozens of South Africans have opted for prepaid electricity metres as a means to curb the frightening billing crisis that sees residents charged sky-high fees for electricity they have not used.
Carina Courtney of Weltevreden Park is one such resident. “I was tired of receiving exorbitant electricity bills, one month it was R1 500 and the next month it climbed to R3 500. I stay with my daughter here and our electricity bill kept on climbing higher and higher but we did nothing different.”
She installed her prepaid electricity metre in April last year and she is happy with her choice. “I’m spending a maximum of R500 every month on my prepaid electricity which is far less than what I spent when the city billed me.”
But all is not well. When Courtney first moved over to prepaid electricity she continued to pay her bill as she was told it may take several weeks for her account to be switched over, but it has now been a great deal longer. “I stopped paying the electricity bill from the municipality because I couldn’t keep up anymore as this was exhausting my budget.”
After a visit to the Roodepoort Civic Centre she was referred to the City of Johannesburg’s Jorissen Street offices where she was assured her problem would be resolved. To date, the issue has not been resolved despite numerous phone calls and visits to the relevant entities. “When I go there or call I’m always given a reference number and I doubt that anything is ever done on my account because every time we start from the beginning when I lodge a complaint or try to follow up.”
Her latest statement from the municipality reflects R10 000.
Spokesperson for the City Council’s Revenue and Customer Relations department Stan Maphologela said an investigation was conducted into Courtney’s query and it was found the prepaid metre was indeed installed and the conventional metre was removed from their system on 28 January.”The customer’s account will be adjusted accordingly by reversing the interim charges once our systems are updated with all the current details of the customers’ prepaid metrefrom a discontinued conventional meter.”
They advised Coutney should wait for her next bill in order to view all corrections made.
