Eric Simms writes:
“We are feeling incredibly angry and frustrated with our local municipality over the recent installation of prepaid meters in our area of Farrarmere.
“Having the meters in itself is not necessarily a bad thing at all; however, it would have been nice to have been informed of the change-over beforehand instead of suddenly, mid-June, being given our new meter and told that from that day on we were on prepaid.
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“We, as residents, were not consulted at all in the decision to change over to prepaid.
“The implication of this was that from that day forward we basically had to pay double electricity for two months as our municipal bills come two months in arrears.
“Many people simply cannot afford to pay double electricity in one month.
“If they had just had the common decency to warn us that the changeover was going to take place so that we could have been more prepared, but no, that is clearly asking too much!
“On top of this, the amounts they billed us for electricity on our municipal bill is also not an accurate reading taken from our old meter, it is their usual ‘interim’ reading, just a thumb suck, which was more than our actual usage.
“So when we received our latest bill, we were hoping to get a bit of a refund for the excess amount that we had paid up until the change-over. No such thing, in fact, they have the audacity to still charge us for electricity when we are now paying it already on prepaid, again a thumb suck amount.
“When my husband went in to query it, he was of course met with incompetence and the attitude that we must just pay and when this is all sorted out by our next municipal bill they will refund us!
“How totally corrupt that they can just bill us for whatever they feel like and we must just pay!
“Was there no one competent enough when they started this upgrade to prepaid meters to make sure that they would make amends to our municipal bills and no longer charge for electricity?
“Man, this makes a person so angry and desperate.”
Editor’s note: Ekurhuleni metro spokesperson Themba Gadebe said: “Notices informing residents about the project were distributed on several occasions, and we apologise if these did not reach all customers involved.
“The project was necessitated by the fact that the metro has difficulty in reading and auditing electricity meters that are inside customer properties. The problem is resolved through the installation of prepayment meter technology. Once installed, electricity units will have to be purchased, while also having to pay for the electricity already consumed as reflected on the old conventional meter. This has the effect of the customer effectively paying for previously consumed electricity and pre-paying as well.
“Customers are more than welcome to make arrangements to pay off the previously consumed electricity interest free if they cannot afford to pay the full amount. Tariff B customers will find that the fixed charge portion on prepayment metering is less than that on conventional metering. The result will be a saving on the monthly (prepayment) electricity cost. Our electronic business processes are designed to close off the old meter and commence with the new meter. However, updating these processes was slow as a result of volumes involved, and we apologise that the old meter was billed again.”
