Busted: City Power cuts off electricity
Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre cuts off electricity of non-paying customers through their revenue collection drive.
Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre (SDC) general manager Sbusiso Xulu says City Power is owed over R400m by customers in the Roodepoort region supply area.
Xulu revealed this during the entity’s Revenue Collection Drive on October 3 in collaboration with law enforcement agencies, to recoup a total of R29m owed.
“Of the customers with outstanding accounts, only 40% have made payment arrangements with the city. A further 20% are disputing their outstanding bills,” Xulu said during the media briefing.
Xulu emphasised the significance of the revenue collection for City Power, stressing that the funds are crucial for maintaining and upgrading the city’s infrastructure and ensuring the continued provision of essential services to residents.
The University of South Africa’s (Unisa) Florida Campus, which was on the list of customers targeted during this cut-off operation, managed to escape a disconnection by settling its R5m electricity debt in time.
After ignoring several intervention measures, including pre-termination notices to settle its debt of R5m, the institution eventually paid R2.5m earlier in the month and another R2.6m this month (during the operation) to settle the debt, just in time to avoid facing a disconnection.
Two other businesses in the area were also cut off during the operation for owing over R6m each. Another two were disconnected for outstanding debts of R1.7m and R2.3m, respectively.
One of the businesses owing R6m is in Wilfordon, near Davidsonville, which operates heavy machinery and was found to have electricity through an illegal connection.
“The meter number that we are looking for is not there; they are claiming that it was stolen. The one that they are using currently is illegal and is not on our system. All these machines here have been running for free for three years. The R6m that they are owing, will now have to be recalculated to take this illegal connection into account and the relevant associated penalties into account,” stated Xulu at the factory.
According to City Power, Roodepoort is one of the communities that are plagued by vandalism and theft, resulting in high costs of repairs and material replacement, and a high rate of non-payment of services is also crippling their resources.
