How “Izinyoka” steal electricity worth billions each year in SA

[Kevin Lancaster]

How “Izinyoka” steal electricity worth billions each year in South Africa

Electricity thieves, known as Izinyoka, are costing Eskom billions annually and are responsible for numerous deaths.

 

[Diesal]

I'm picking up on a trend, regarding Carte Blanche and subsequent MyBroadband articles..

However, upon watching Carte Blanche the other day, I wholly didn't agree with what that guy was saying, we can complain about load shedding, cause we actually have to pay for our electricity.

 

[Electric]

Izinyoka?
Is that another word for South African citizen?

 

[Napalm2880]

Does anything get done if you report illegal connections?

 

[TheGuy]

Why don't they just disconnect the cable and plug it into a 500V source to fry everything connected to it.

 

[ISP cash cow]

Does anyone know if the Eskom grid has any monitoring equipment that would be able to measure electricity consumed compared to electricity billed out per substation or area?

 

[DA-LION-619]

7% of electricity is stolen but 19% of revenue is lost?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Why don't they just disconnect the cable and plug it into a 500V source to fry everything connected to it.

Excellent idea :twisted:

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Methinks it is the same as the petrol stream revenue - a big smelly rat is somewhere...

...a portion of the funds is diverted perchance?

 

[Iwojima]

Does anything get done if you report illegal connections?

Generally speaking, yes. There are some areas that Eskom cannot go into without a police escort that tends to delay disconnection, but in any event the illegal connections are back up within days.

Does anyone know if the Eskom grid has any monitoring equipment that would be able to measure electricity consumed compared to electricity billed out per substation or area?

There is something referred to as "energy balancing" that gets done to correlate energy usage v.s. what is expected/installed, but it's not intelligent enough a system to "zoom in" to transformer level. For that to happen the smart metering system currently being tested around Gauteng needs to be rolled out nationally.

7% of electricity is stolen but 19% of revenue is lost?

Poor word choice in the article I suspect. Electricity theft does not translate in only lost sales, but additional maintenance/replacement (and the cost thereof) of overloaded infrastructure as well.

 

[mister]

What is up with all these "carte blanche" articles appearing during the week after they air on carte blanche? Is there nothing original on mybb?

 

[falcon786]

7% of electricity is stolen but 19% of revenue is lost?

Exactly and the best part is this isn't the main problem for Eskom...BEE and eroding of competent people while paying staff over inflated salaries is the problem.

According to Carte Blanche, the problem started 16 years ago when Eskom introduced a user-must-pay policy for electricity in South Africa.

Many households who were paying a flat rate of around R24 a month now had to pay much more for power

If Eskom was run properly they could give the poor this flat rate still and not charge middle income people exorbitant rates.

One of my friends (engineer)works for a company that gets paid millions for a small projects in Eskom's new Kusile plant and guess what they only got the job because Eskom engineers who are paid huge salaries are too lazy and incompetent to to the job.

Basically Eskom is paying double for everything that should be done in house and its costing us Billions.BEE means that a black lady gets a job she cant do,and thats a top management job!

 

[reactor_sa]

Does anything get done if you report illegal connections?

If in the suburb's then absolutely no doubt. If in the locations, just laugh it off

 

[Valerion]

What is up with all these "carte blanche" articles appearing during the week after they air on carte blanche? Is there nothing original on mybb?

I find these helpful. I don't give money to MultiChoice, so I don't get MNet and as a result don't watch Carte Blanche.

Not that I did while I still had DSTV in any event. I prefer a nice summary article like this, here or in other media outlets.

 

[LazyLion]

What is up with all these "carte blanche" articles appearing during the week after they air on carte blanche? Is there nothing original on mybb?

Not all of us watch Carte Blanche, so I for one appreciate the repeats.