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City Power reiterates not responding to calls from non-paying customers

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City Power has reiterated that it will refuse to respond to outage calls from non-paying customers. The utility says its finances are being negatively impacted by higher stages of rolling blackouts, coupled with being owed around R10-billion in unpaid electricity bills.

City Power says those who’ve bypassed the meters will also not be spared.

It says it has written to residents of Naturena in the south of Johannesburg, giving them until Friday to respond.

This after many refused technicians access to audit and install new smart meters in their homes.

Spokesperson Isaac Mangena says: “We are doing this because of the revenue collection in the city. We have about R10-billion sitting out there that needs to be recovered and we have realised that, especially during higher stages of load shedding, we are losing a lot of money, R3.6-million every day. This is through material that is needed, sub-stations that burned or blew up, cables that got stolen and the extra human resources that we need to respond to the higher stages of load shedding. So, we are losing a lot of money.”

VIDEO | City Power warns it will no longer respond to non-paying customers:

Tshwane adversely affected by higher stages of load shedding 

Meanwhile, the City of Tshwane has once again stated that higher levels of rolling blackouts are having a catastrophic effect on the metro’s power infrastructure.

Tshwane’s MMC for Utilities and Regional Operations,  Themba Fosi, says: “The damage is catastrophic, I must say. We are open to vandalism, theft and the network is aging – therefore the infrastructure is not built to be put on and off. It has very catastrophic consequences.”

Eskom is currently imposing Stage 6 power cuts, anticipated to persist throughout the week.

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