Large tariff adjustments now critical for many municipalities

ANC twats are screwing us for R416 on prepaid. Has been like this for at least 8 years.
Its part of the rates and taxes account I get every month from the municipality.
Meanwhile potholes and the rest of the services have gone for a ball of shyte.
Have to pay it even though I have asked them repeatedly to disconnect me from the grid.
T
Born thieves.
 
Major Boredom said:
The R200 on prepaid is not meant to pay for sallaries
The services fee on post paid is meant for that
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Service fee was for meter reading.
Remember those guys that walked the suburbs with a pad and wrote down the meter reading?
They don't read pre-paid meters.
Not applicable on pre-paid.
 
system32 said:
Service fee was for meter reading.
Remember those guys that walked the suburbs with a pad and wrote down the meter reading?
They don't read pre-paid meters.
Not applicable on pre-paid.
Click to expand...
R1000 per month for the meter reader? What's his salary?
 
wingnut771 said:
R1000 per month for the meter reader? What's his salary?
Click to expand...

A meter reader can probably read 100 meters per day (~5 minutes per meter)
20 days per month => 2,000 per month.

R244.20 service fee for post-paid to read meter * 2000 => R488,400 per month
R70.00 service fee for pre-paid to read meter * 2000 => R140,000 per month

Meter readers earn a basic salary.
CoJ and contractor keeps the bulk of the service fee.
SCAM.
 
system32 said:
Service fee was for meter reading.
Click to expand...
Not entirely.

I think perhaps the underlying consideration with all of this is that whether you are on prepaid or postpaid the physical infrastructure (cables, substations etc) costs are the same. There may be some administration cost differences but I doubt there's a massive difference overall since prepaid has its own share of administrative costs including commission etc. The question then is how do you recover this cost across all customer sizes fairly so that one is not subsidising the other.
 
quovadis said:
Not entirely.

I think perhaps the underlying consideration with all of this is that whether you are on prepaid or postpaid the physical infrastructure (cables, substations etc) costs are the same. There may be some administration cost differences but I doubt there's a massive difference overall since prepaid has its own share of administrative costs including commission etc. The question then is how do you recover this cost across all customer sizes fairly so that one is not subsidising the other.
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All costs are covered with the 100% markup.

All these other fees are just double taxes (extortion).

1721319070088.png
 
wingnut771 said:
All costs are covered with the 100% markup.

All these other fees are just double taxes (extortion).
Click to expand...
I'm not convinced that one side is not subsidising the other. It's probable though that there's wasteful expenditure but that affects both. I'm simply commenting on the one vs the other.
 
quovadis said:
Not entirely.

I think perhaps the underlying consideration with all of this is that whether you are on prepaid or postpaid the physical infrastructure (cables, substations etc) costs are the same. There may be some administration cost differences but I doubt there's a massive difference overall since prepaid has its own share of administrative costs including commission etc. The question then is how do you recover this cost across all customer sizes fairly so that one is not subsidising the other.
Click to expand...
There's a big difference from a finance and risk point of view. Postpaid you pay in arrears, so that's a couple of grand per household of money that the municipality has to carry on a debtors book. There's opportunity cost attached to that money (even if it's just interest in a bank account that the muni isn't earning or is paying... ). There's also risk that that money won't come in, and covering that risk also costs money.
 
Sinbad said:
There's a big difference from a finance and risk point of view. Postpaid you pay in arrears, so that's a couple of grand per household of money that the municipality has to carry on a debtors book. There's opportunity cost attached to that money (even if it's just interest in a bank account that the muni isn't earning or is paying... ). There's also risk that that money won't come in, and covering that risk also costs money.
Click to expand...
Sure and postpaid is probably quantifiable as a percentage of revenue which I'd argue is in a similar ballpark to commissions payable on tokens/vouchers purchased at retailers. I also doubt prepaid revenue reaches the municipality prior to consumption so they'd still be carrying the cost at least on a minimum 30-60 day basis.
 
Sinbad said:
There's a big difference from a finance and risk point of view. Postpaid you pay in arrears, so that's a couple of grand per household of money that the municipality has to carry on a debtors book. There's opportunity cost attached to that money (even if it's just interest in a bank account that the muni isn't earning or is paying... ). There's also risk that that money won't come in, and covering that risk also costs money.
Click to expand...
Muni also pays eskom in arrears.
 
quovadis said:
Not entirely.

I think perhaps the underlying consideration with all of this is that whether you are on prepaid or postpaid the physical infrastructure (cables, substations etc) costs are the same. There may be some administration cost differences but I doubt there's a massive difference overall since prepaid has its own share of administrative costs including commission etc. The question then is how do you recover this cost across all customer sizes fairly so that one is not subsidising the other.
Click to expand...
There are two fees and don't forget the markup:
  • Service Fee - meter reading and administration
  • Capacity/Network Fee - Infrastructure, cables, substations, poles, etc
  • Markup on bulk Eskom rate and much higher CoJ customer rate R/kWh
The administration is minor for pre-paid - only a few rands per customer.

Why are MTN and VodaCom prepaid Service fee and Capacity fees zero but CoJ need to charge fees on prepaid?
 
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system32 said:
There are two fees:
  • Service Fee - meter reading, administration
  • Capacity/Network Fee - Infrastructure, cables, substations, poles, etc
The administration is minor for pre-paid - only a few rands per customer.

Why are MTN and VodaCom prepaid Service fee and Capacity fees are zero?
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They’re paying 3-5% comm on the retail revenue side alone - that’s far in excess of what your finance cost would be for any company that size. That’s not considering whatever the enablement/service providers charge to maintain the systems for it. Comparing mobile service providers to electricity supply is disengenuous.
 
quovadis said:
They’re paying 3-5% comm on the retail revenue side alone - that’s far in excess of what your finance cost would be for any company that size. That’s not considering whatever the enablement/service providers charge to maintain the systems for it. Comparing mobile service providers to electricity supply is disengenuous.
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What's the markup on Eskom bulk R/kWh and the prepaid rate that CoJ charge customers?

Why do you say the Service Fee comparison is disingenuous?

There is no difference in Administration comparing CoJ prepaid service fee to zero service fee on prepaid cellular. The administration component is the same. Both require tokens, computers, databases, staff, billing, etc, but cellular are able to do it for "free" aka it's a very small component cost of running a cell network.
 
system32 said:
A meter reader can probably read 100 meters per day (~5 minutes per meter)
20 days per month => 2,000 per month.

R244.20 service fee for post-paid to read meter * 2000 => R488,400 per month
R70.00 service fee for pre-paid to read meter * 2000 => R140,000 per month

Meter readers earn a basic salary.
CoJ and contractor keeps the bulk of the service fee.
SCAM.
Click to expand...

It’s worse than a scam, prepaid meters aren’t read, neither are post paid smart meters, yet they’re both charged the ‘fee’.
 
system32 said:
What's the markup on Eskom bulk R/kWh and the prepaid rate that CoJ charge customers?

Why do you say the Service Fee comparison is disingenuous?

There is no difference in Administration comparing CoJ prepaid service fee to zero service fee on prepaid cellular. The administration component is the same. Both require tokens, computers, databases, staff, billing, etc, but cellular are able to do it for "free" aka it's a very small component cost of running a cell network.
Click to expand...
I’m arguing the administrative cost difference of post paid to administrative cost of pre paid which also needs to incorporate commissions and enablement/systems are probably negligible. Im not talking markups or service fees.

Edit: I’ll just add prepaid cellular isn’t done for free or anywhere near as small as what the commission on electricity tokens is.
 
Neuk_ said:
It’s worse than a scam, prepaid meters aren’t read, neither are post paid smart meters, yet they’re both charged the ‘fee’.
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There is a lot of shenanigans going on right now with these electricity middlemen. These con artists are ripping people off by skimming off the top by obscuring your readings. They say they read the meters for you. Yeah they do, but they simply refuse to tell you what your hourly consumption is, so they obscure it behind staggered feedback on their apps and websites.

You can pop 200 bucks in, next day all gone even though you weren't home and no appliances on. When you enquire you always get the "We deducted over several days usage not just yesterday"

You drop in another 200 bucks, same story, gone. Phone then again, get some more bullshit about service fees and averages. We have widespread corruption on every level in SA.

When someone else is in control of your money, you can 100% be assured corruption is taking place.
 
Solarion said:
There is a lot of shenanigans going on right now with these electricity middlemen. These con artists are ripping people off by skimming off the top by obscuring your readings. They say they read the meters for you. Yeah they do, but they simply refuse to tell you what your hourly consumption is, so they obscure it behind staggered feedback on their apps and websites.

You can pop 200 bucks in, next day all gone even though you weren't home and no appliances on. When you enquire you always get the "We deducted over several days usage not just yesterday"

You drop in another 200 bucks, same story, gone. Phone then again, get some more bullshit about service fees and averages. We have widespread corruption on every level in SA.

When someone else is in control of your money, you can 100% be assured corruption is taking place.
Click to expand...
Get a din rail electricity meter installed in your DB and to verify and then if they don’t align with your records at least you have documentary proof to dispute.
 
Solarion said:
blha blah
but they simply refuse to tell you what your hourly consumption is, so they obscure it behind staggered feedback on their apps and websites.
blah blah
Click to expand...
Go read it yourself and do some maths. No escuse for being lazy
If I am not mistaken the account you get has a date on it that it was read.

One of the reasons I moved to prepaid was the "estimated" BS.
MY usage is within 2% to 5% of my usage shown on my invertor and has been within that range since day 1
 
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