Johannesburg - City Power is on a mission to recoup around R9 billion from businesses, residents, and organisations that have been defaulting on their electricity payments.
City Power has been ruthless in its pursuit of recouping what is owed to it, cutting off hotels, shopping centres, and, in some cases, international missions from the municipal grid.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said City Power treated all customers in rich and poor areas in the same manner.
There would be warnings before officials came to switch the power off.
A pre-termination notice is issued 14 days before the disconnection can be effected.
On the day of disconnection, we also issue disconnection job cards.
Customers are then advised to visit their area service delivery centre in order to make payments (including a reconnection fee); if they are not making the full payment, they can enter into an AOD arrangement for the balance.
“As part of our ongoing tough stance against defaulting and non-paying customers, City Power embarked on a disconnection drive, targeting businesses, government institutions, residential complexes, and shopping centres.
“City Power is guided by the revenue department, as they deal with billing.
“They provide us with defaulting accounts that were given pre-termination notices as a guide to restrict their services,” Mangena said.
He said the Apartheid Museum in Ormonde was among the institutions that had had their power cut off this week.
They owed the municipality over R1m.
The Star understand that the museum management had since met with municipal officials to make arrangements.
Mangena said the move to take tough actions against the culture of non-payment of services was yielding results.
Since the collection marathon in October last year, around R4bn has been collected to date.
“City Power is beginning to realise the gains made from running our enhanced revenue collection drives.
“Thus far, close to R4bn has been collected across the city since October 2022,” Mangena said.
He said Tinties Shisanyama in Joburg's south gave them a hard time for not paying and refusing to acknowledge their agreement, which caused them to cut off electricity twice this week.
“We are owed over R3 million by this company, and on Tuesday, we went to Naturena after severally reminding them to pay for months, and we cut off power due to the non-response we got from them.
“Soon after we left, they followed us to our offices to negotiate and sign an agreement that stated that they would pay back the money on Wednesday, but the payment we received was not per our agreement, therefore we went back and cut off their electricity.”
He said the cut-off will continue throughout the week as they seek to recover at least R40m of debt.
“In order for the company to continue with daily operations and to invest in putting its future energy management policies into action, it is crucial to foster a culture of paying for services that customers utilise,” said Mangena.
The Star