Tshwane collection campaign heads to townships: Mamelodi, Nellmapius customers have biggest debt

The City of Tshwane says it is owed R7.3bn by township customers across its seven regions.

As part of its revenue collection campaign #TshwaneYaTima, the city said it was finalising logistics to vigorously pursue defaulters, made up of residents, businesses, councillors, employees and government departments whose accounts are in arrears.

Spokesperson Selby Bokaba said as at June 30, Mamelodi and Nellmapius customers had the highest debt of more than R2.1bn, followed by Soshanguve clients who owe more than R1.1bn.

“Atteridgeville, Lotus Gardens and Saulsville customers have a combined debt of R713m. Babelegi and New Eersterus in Region 2 have an outstanding debt of close to R643m, while customers in Ekangala, Refilwe Ext, Rethabiseng, Riamar Park and Zithobeni in Region 7 owe R527m. In Eersterust, near Mamelodi, customers are more than R170m in arrears.

“The city is also owed more than R60m by Olievenhoutbosch-389 and Olievenhoutbos customers. Ga-Rankuwa, Mabopane and Winterveldt’s combined figure is the lowest at just over R19m,” he said.

The city has encouraged customers whose accounts are in arrears to pay in full and on time, and if they can’t afford, to contact customer care to make a payment arrangement to avoid discontinuation of services.

Bokaba said residential customers are required to pay between 10% and 30% while business clients are expected to settle 60% of their debt to avoid disconnection.

“The city has between 20 and 30 June 2022, after the resumption of its #TshwaneYaTima revenue collection campaign, managed to permanently remove installation (rip disconnection) to 13 transgressors — eight residential and five business customers — who were also slapped with hefty fines totalling over R1m for tampering with the city’s infrastructure, over and above their arrears accounts of more than R14m,” he said.

He said in the period between July 1-8, the city affected 22 more rip disconnections to 11 residential and 11 business transgressors who were also hit with fines totalling R12m.

“Our technicians are regularly inspecting all the meters that had been disconnected after realising a criminal pattern by some unscrupulous customers that illegally reconnect their electricity immediately after being disconnected,” said Bokaba.

He said the city aims to collect a total of about R17bn it is owed by government departments, embassies, businesses, entities and residential customers.

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