Eskom Service Representative Mpho Rahlare made an astonishing announcement during a public Imbizo held at Samuel Mangani Primary School.
The announcement was that residents of Dobsonville Extension 1,2 and 3 electricity debts will be written off.
According to Rahlare, debt write-off for the residents of the mentioned areas was approved in August this year.
“We started by installing the electricity split metering system and converted residents of those areas into prepaid meter system.
“The process started 36 months ago and it’s ongoing. We will soon send letters to residents informing them that their debts are now written off by Eskom,” added Rahlare.
The new split metering system is aimed at dealing with unplanned power failures, illegal connection and fatalities caused by illegal access to Eskom through Izinyokanyoka (Illegal connection).
He said they will soon embark on the removal of Eskom pillar boxes and replaced them with split metering boxes (Green boxes).
“Green boxes will make it difficult for residents to gain easy access and only Eskom technicians will have access.
“In Soweto, the process of rolling out Green boxes has already started in Pimville and Meadowlands. We will soon extend it to other parts of Soweto soon,” said Rahlare.
He said they will soon embark on a process to educate residents on how they should save electricity and urge residents to start paying their monthly Eskom subscription fees.
However, residents Mamsi Tsatsi (73) and William Tsatsi (83) complained bitterly about abnormal Eskom billing system at their households in the last past two months.
They are staying in four-room houses with a daughter who is working and has a separate prepaid electricity meter in the backyard rooms.
“It was astonishing in the last past two months when we got R1000 and R800 billing respectively. We ended spending our pension money to settle the bill.
“That left us with nothing to survive for the last two months,” lashed out Tsatsi.
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