City of Joburg considers cutting ‘problematic areas’ from power grid

The City of Joburg is considering drastic measures to deal with residents and businesses in “problematic areas” who make it difficult for its officials to do their work.

The city said it would consider disconnecting from the grid those who attack, threaten, rob, obstruct, or simply refuse workers access to electricity and water meters.

The city revealed that 2,605 customers owe it around R464.5m collectively for water just in September. These customers live in areas the city cannot access, according to Kgamanyane Maphologela, Joburg's director for communications.

“A further 323 customers who owe the city more than R46.6m for water services either intimidated or refused the Johannesburg Water meter readers access to those meters.

“In the same month, the city struggled to collect a whopping R71.3m that is owed for electricity as City Power technicians faced intimidation from 143 customers. These are customers who blatantly reconnect themselves to services each time they get disconnected and refuse to co-operate with the city,” he said.

The city’s group CFO, Tebogo Moraka, said the continued attacks on officials may result in drastic measures being taken.

“We will ultimately be forced to consider the complete disconnection of electricity supply to these problematic areas. It’s unacceptable that our staff increasingly face resistance and intimidation for doing their jobs, from communities and businesses they serve.

“We want to caution residents that electricity and water meters are the property of the city,” she said.

The announcement came days after two female City Power technicians were robbed while working in Discovery, Roodepoort.

Back in May, City Power announced that it would no longer respond to outage calls from customers who refuse to pay for electricity, including those with non-vending meters, and defaulting clients.

The entity said it had written to the residents of Naturena, in Johannesburg South, informing them of its decision, which will stand until its teams are allowed to normalise the area to ensure revenue collection is enhanced.

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