City Power prepaid electricity nightmare

City Power is punishing prepaid customers who buy many units upfront with hefty fines and disconnections, according to Johannesburg Ward 99 councillor Nicole van Wyk.
Van Wyk told 702 that residents have been cut off and charged a fine of R12,000 as the municipal power provider suspects these customers of using illegal connections.
“Residents are being cut off and being charged a fee of R12,000 if they had solar and prepaid. City Power is coming to them and saying they weren’t vending enough, and it must be an illegal connection,” she said.
She explained that some residents will buy smaller amounts of electricity as they need, while others will spend thousands on units upfront, which they then save to use when needed.
Van Wyk’s attempts to get clarity on the issue from City Power have been unsuccessful.
The municipal power utility subsequently issued a statement saying customers won’t face disconnection if they follow the registration and installation procedures, pay the fees, and comply with the regulations.
“However, if you go onto City Power’s website, there’s not a lot of information about this. So, it’s very vague and City Power’s only releasing the statement now after a DA councillor gave his interpretation of it,” said Van Wyk.
“The only thing that comes to mind is the city has openly said how cash strapped it is. Earlier this year, City Power wanted to implement a R530 service fee on prepaid meters. Thankfully, it was brought down to R230.”
She explained that the new disconnection procedure was implemented with insufficient public participation, similar to the situation with the prepaid service fee.
“You’re penalising residents for paying the city upfront when the city is already struggling to collect money from post-paid residents. It’s constantly just punitive,” said Van Wyk.
“If the city is that desperate for money, look at City Power’s quarterly reports. They’ve got a record there of the top 50 large power users that owe money.”
“The amount of these departments that are government departments that owe money is extraordinary, but the city keeps going after the little guy, being the resident,” she added.

Eskom prepaid electricity crackdown
City Power isn’t the only power utility disconnecting customers for suspected illegal activities. Eskom has also cut off customers in various regions of the country. However, it audits meters before disconnecting and issuing fines.
The state-owned power utility’s data revealed that nearly 40% of its prepaid meters in some of the country’s cities aren’t vending power, indicating high meter fraud.
According to Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena, customers can face fines of around R6,050 and won’t be reconnected until the fee is paid.
She explained that these customers are fined for bypassing their electricity meters or purchasing illegal tokens from ghost vendors.
“We’ve got customers that we have disconnected because when we audited their meters, we found that customers have done these illicit behaviours,” said Mokwena.
“The process is that we disconnect the customer. We fine the customer depending on what the customer is consuming. If it’s a 60amp or 20amp customer, we fine the customer about R6,050.”
“The customer stays disconnected until they pay that amount,” she added.
Mokwena explained that Eskom has disconnected entire areas in instances where it finds a high portion of customers in a neighbourhood using illegal connections.
She noted that 90% of customers in one neighbourhood Eskom audited were illegally connected.
“We do disconnect these customers until we come to some agreement where they pay their penalties. We then replace the meters that they would have vandalised,” she said.