![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/118/2019/06/Illegal-connections.jpg)
EMFULENI. – The Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) recently embarked on a year long project to remove illegal electrical connections and to normalize bridged or bypassed meters.
Contractors working together with the municipality’s electricians converged in SE7 Vanderbijlpark recently to kick off the first three days of the project.
The municipality said it would be visiting all student homes in the Vanderbijlpark vicinity. This is after they found one student home to have had two illegal electricity connection upgrades.
The municipality said upon normalising bypassed smart meters, back-billing would be implemented through the recently approved electricity by-law and credit control policy.
ELM’s Spokesperson Stanley Gaba says, “On prepaid electricity, the illegally consumed electricity will be recovered by deducting previously unauthorized consumption on all new electricity purchases.The audit seeks to help the municipality to improve billing accuracy, identify faulty and and malfunctioning meters including meters that have been tampered with.
“Currently, the municipality’s electricity infrastructure is under extreme prelude and the network is overloaded by illegal connections and unauthorized connection upgrades. Resulting frequent electricity outages have left paying customers without electricity. The electricity meter audit will remove all illegal connections and unauthorized connection upgrades.”