Pretoria - City Power said it will no longer respond to outage calls from non-paying customers and customers with non-vending meters.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the decision comes as the entity battles with pressure on the grid amid load shedding, and low revenue collection targets.
Mangena said during a medium-voltage outage, at least 70% of the customers in that area should be paying customers. If not, technicians will not go ahead with repairs or restore power in those areas.
“For this reason, we have embarked on a citywide programme to ensure we get as many citizens as possible to pay for their electricity services – those that can. For those that can’t, the City has programmes to assist the indigent residents.
“As City Power we operate in an environment that often has complex and often expensive priorities and expectations from a variety of stakeholders. We will increase our efforts to collect the outstanding debt from customers across the City of Johannesburg,” he said.
Since January, the utility has embarked on an aggressive revenue collection drive to collect about R10 billion owed by customers across the city.
“Customers with bridged or bypassed meters are encouraged to visit their nearest service delivery centre to make payment arrangements that are available to our customers.
“We further appeal to residents for co-operation and to allow our officials to gain access to their properties when they come to audit and normalise meters,” Mangena said.
Meanwhile, various areas in the city have been without power since Monday following the heavy rains.
Mangena said the utility had received more than 2 000 outage calls.
He said its systems were under immense pressure due to the wet weather conditions, rolling power cuts, and the ongoing theft and vandalism at its sub-stations.
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— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) May 8, 2023
City Power is experiencing high call volumes due to wet weather conditions.^GR pic.twitter.com/3nhvY1hZSa
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