City Power officials were on Friday meeting with Naturena residents ahead of a long-planned smart meter rollout, which is set to take place on Monday in the area.
The utility is set to send hundreds of yellow bib-wearing agents to homes in Naturena in a bid to install new smart meters, as it strives to meet a deadline to replace all old prepaid electricity meters by November next year.
Users of old technology-powered prepaid electricity meters will not be able to load electricity tokens or vouchers. Their meters are being changed, free of charge, by new-age smart meters that allow City Power to limit load remotely, which assists the City in times of a strained energy grid.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said they were holding the meeting with Naturena residents to prepare them for the installations, which are set to commence on Monday.
“A pocket of the residents have been refusing City Power technicians from installing prepaid meters because they do not want to pay for electricity services.
“Their actions, however, impacted the lives of the many who are paying for their services. We appeal to the residents for cooperation as the teams respond to outage calls in Naturena,” said Mangena.
He said City Power would switch on electricity for all residents in Naturena.
“It is for this reason that City Power will switch on electricity to all of Naturena, including Ext. 19.
The team has also completed the repair to the second cable, which will address problems of overloading experienced in the area for the past few days,” he said.
The Naturena community owes the City of Johannesburg a collective R309 million in unpaid electricity bills, while over R10 billion is owed by non-paying residents and businesses around the whole municipality.
In an operation in September, Naturena residents managed to block City Power officials from wide-scale disconnection of services. Officials only managed to disconnect 20 houses.
City Power said it was also owed over R90 million in the past three years by Naturena residents who had managed to bypass the system. It said out of 3,000 registered prepaid customers in the area, only about half were paying for their electricity in the area.
IOL