Egoli Gas disconnection drive in east Joburg leaves residents piping mad

In January this year, Kensington resident Brett Anderson forked out nearly R40,000 to switch his geyser to gas and increase his house's reliance on natural gas as it had worked well for him over the past 13 years. This was in the hope that it would help ease the effects of load-shedding.

Less than a year after making what he deemed a “responsible” choice, he's forced to consider converting his supply to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) after his service provider, Egoli Gas, notified him and other residents of their intention to terminate their supply of piped natural gas because its “network infrastructure has reached the end of its lifespan”.

This notice was sent to Bezuidenhout Valley, Malvern, Bertrams and Kensington residents connected to Egoli Gas' network early in September.

The company backtracked two weeks later after an outcry from residents over the short notice and issued another letter extending the cut-off date to the first week of November.

In the letter, Egoli Gas said: “The pipes in the ground [were] laid more than 90 years ago when the city council manufactured gas from coal and pumped to surrounding suburbs. Egoli Gas has been maintaining this network. It now needs to be replaced or shut down.

“We have more than 300km of pipes supplying the Bez Valley, Malvern, Bertrams and Kensington areas which are affected by the notification. The rate to replace submerged pipelines to the latest SANS standards is not economically viable and beyond our financial capability.

“Please note we are a private entity with limited resources and no affiliation to the city council. [After] the overwhelming response and disappointment, we realise the notice period is short and will extend the disconnection date to the first week of November. Egoli Gas will inform customers in the area of the change in date via SMS and email,” the company said.

It's not clear how many households are on Egoli Gas' network, but the association pegged it at about 500.

It also confirmed a “conversation rebate” would be offered to affected residents, but said this would only be paid out once it retrieves its meter. According to residents, this is R3,000.

The announcement left many residents frustrated and angry as they accused the company of poor consultation and “class discrimination”. Frustrated residents also labelled the notice period “ridiculous” as they confirmed a legal challenge.

They say they are told it's not economically viable to maintain the aged network, but new projects are apparently under way or in place in the west of Johannesburg and as far as Midrand.

A few years ago it was reported that the company unveiled a R65m gas pipeline project that would see households and commercial buildings connected to their expanding network.

Many people took to social media to vent their frustration, calling on the company to hold a public meeting to “explain the true situation” to residents.

“There are many Kensington residents who have been customers for decades who are being dropped by you with little time to make alternative plans, with an offer of compensation that amounts to an insult. Not so long ago, Egoli Gas was promoting gas generators to help with load-shedding. And now selling your product to existing customers is not economically viable? It doesn't make sense,” Jennifer Bond posted.

Anderson, who is also an executive committee member of the Kensington Community Association (KCA), spoke to TimesLIVE about the impending disconnection, confirming they only received notices on September 7. KCA was formerly known as the Kensington Residents and Ratepayers Association.

“On September 7, [I received a letter dated September 6] saying 'Dear Mr Anderson, we're terminating your services as of the first week of October. So 30 days notice. Then on the 19th I got an email telling us we were going to get an extension until the first week of November.”

Anderson said he's been an Egoli Gas customer since he moved to Kensington in 2003 and from then until receiving the notice they've provided good service and were “very efficient”. So impressed by their service was Anderson that he not only recommended their service to others, he also made a bigger investment in the network by converting his geyser to gas. 

This cost him R37,500. He initially only used a gas stove and gas-fired heater. Only his oven uses LPG. His monthly bill was about R1,600 excluding Egoli Gas' service fee of R320. 

“A lot of us were looking at the load-shedding situation, certainly towards the end of last year, and [thinking] when you have six hours of outages your geyser doesn't turn on, you've got no hot water and all of those good things.

“At the beginning of this year I invested about R37,500 in a gas geyser installed at my property. There's a lot of piping expenses because it's a 1-inch pipe and not a small LPG pipe. So there's a lot of expenses involved to get a gas geyser and then you've got to switch the plumbing and water piping to your gas geyser and that [too] comes at a huge expense.”

Anderson said Kensington residents were blindsided by the September notices despite rumours in April.

At the time, some residents received disconnection letters from the company and upon following up, as he was not among them, he was told this was due to illegal connections.

Anderson is now faced with the expense of making the switch to LPG, which would cost about R10,000. He got off cheaply, he said, as other affected residents faced quotes ranging between R15,000 and R60,000.

“If you had to get two 48kg gas cylinders, that's assuming there is enough stock of those cylinders, you will pay R6,000. If your gas geyser needs a high pressure system you need to go with another 19kg cylinder.

“Then you [will still] need the fire department to certify you are storing more than 100kg of LPG gas on your property and that's R6,500,” he said.

A 48kg gas and cylinder package retails for just under R2,000 on Just Gas. This excludes installation.

He confirmed a meeting was held after the issuing of the letters and angry residents resolved to challenge the move. A task team was formed to do this and on Thursday met lawyers to find a way forward. Anderson is also a member of the task team.

“They told us this is a good case and they'll fight it on our behalf.”

Anderson confirmed they would mount a legal challenge this week and were looking to obtain an urgent interdict against the company.

He said the decision to challenge the “grossly unfair” termination was not just for the benefit of the local community, but also other suburbs affected. This, especially because residents had no alternative service provider as Egoli Gas apparently had a monopoly over supply.

"[We] also found out that in October/November last year they switched off Rosettenville. [About] 1,200 homes were switched off, but I'm sure their community leaders didn't get this right.

“Now we're not fighting on behalf of just us, we're fighting on behalf of Malvern, Kensington, Bez Valley and Bertrams. So this case that will go to the high court will be beyond the residents of those four suburbs,” he said.

Adding to this was Maurice Smithers, chairperson of KCA, who questioned Egoli Gas' claims of economic constraints as the reason for the termination when they made little to no effort to market the product to more residents in previous years.

“I've been living in Kensington since 2015 and I have never seen any marketing exercise by Egoli Gas to increase their customer base in this area and I personally do use gas, but I use LPG. But if Egoli Gas was available and economically attractive I would use it.

“So I don't know how they could take a decision to cut off the existing customer base on economic grounds because they're saying it's not viable to replace the pipes whereas if they were to double or treble their customer base it would become economically viable,” he said.

Smithers accused the company of “favouring” upmarket suburbs and “basically shutting off middle and lower-middle class” areas, especially those which have historically used piped gas.

He said Egoli Gas, despite being a privatelyowned company, had a responsibility to citizens.

“We don't want them to just send a letter about [termination]. We want to know if they have explored all economic options, we want to know they have done their math correctly and ... whatever they can to try to retain customers, some of whom have been customers for 20-30 years or more. We also want to see them fulfil the mandate of the licence they have, which is to serve the community of Johannesburg.

“If, after all that, they are able to demonstrate in some kind of absolute way that it really doesn't make sense for them to continue and there's no other option, we might be willing to listen. But otherwise we want them to account for themselves,” he said.

Egoli Gas said it would need a few days to respond to TimesLIVE's queries. The article will be updated once their response is received.

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