‘Every cent counts’ as City Power targets nonpaying customers

City Power Johannesburg is redoubling its efforts to get defaulting customers to settle their electricity bills. It will also target those who are drawing power using illegal connections.

The entity, which relies on Eskom for 90% of its power supply and on the Kelvin Power Station for the remaining 10%, said that “revenue collection impacts heavily on the sustainability of the business”.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena on Thursday told City Press that the entity needed the revenue so that it could continue to meet its obligations.

“With this campaign, we want to change attitudes towards nonpayment. If customers don’t pay, we might have to close shop because we will not be able to embark on capital projects to ensure that we sustain power supply. We are also not able to fix outages when they happen.”

Isaac Mangena. Picture: foto24

Mangena added that the drive would include house-to-house visits to customers, as well as the installation of smart meters. These meters would help City Power identify those who consume abnormally high amounts of power.

“We will come knocking at your door to check if you [the customer] have a meter and if you pay for electricity. Smart meters will allow us to remotely monitor electricity consumption patterns and to remotely switch off some of our customers’ nonessential appliances, especially during peak hours and when supply is under severe pressure,” he said.

City Power said customers owed about R4.9 billion.

“More than 37 000 accounts are in default with City Power. Among them are 480 large power users, such as manufacturing and mines, more than 10 400 are businesses, 104 are government departments and more than 26 600 are outstanding residential accounts,” it said.

The entity has not released the names of the worst offenders.

City Power chief executive officer Lerato Setshedi said that customers were being encouraged to come forward voluntarily and settle their accounts or make arrangements to pay off their debt.

He added that, should the entity be forced to disconnect customers, “there will be fees associated with reconnections, including upfront payments”.

However, cutting off power would be the last resort.

Mangena said: “Our bylaws state that we need to give customers two to three days’ notice before we come and cut them off. We will go through all these processes. We have a team that is having stakeholder meetings. Lerato Setshedi will be leading those efforts.”

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