A businessman from Oberholzer warns that other residents must watch out for a scammer claiming to collect money on behalf of the Merafong City Local Municipality.

The businessman, Dirk van der Walt, says that he was recently contacted by a man calling himself David Dube. “Dube said that he was the ‘Head of Disconnection’ at the Merafong City Local Municipality, and threatened that he was going to come to disconnect my electricity because my account was in arrears,” says Van der Walt.

Dube even threatened that he was going to be at Van der Walt’s business in Oberholzer in two hours to disconnect the electricity.

Van der Walt immediately contacted the municipality, with which he has an ongoing legal dispute over his municipal accounts. Officials told him that Dube does not work for them and is not allowed to collect money or do disconnections on behalf of the municipality. Despite this, a group of people who Van der Walt assumed to be municipal staff arrived at the electricity box outside his business to disconnect his electricity. They left when Van der Walt showed them a court order prohibiting such a disconnection that he had previously obtained.

“Why does the municipality not warn people against this scammer? Other people who are not as clued up, especially the elderly, might actually give him money, thinking that they are paying the municipality,” Van der Walt complains. He was also very unhappy about the attempt to disconnect his electricity and said that the municipality had disregarded court orders before.

The Herald took the issues to the municipality’s marketing and communications manager, Temba Fezani.

“A public notice will be issued soon to warn the public against David Dube,” says Fezani.

The Herald also asked about how residents can correctly identify municipal personnel who are allowed to make disconnections.

“Residents are urged to request a final disconnection letter from the municipality and request an identification card from the technician. If the technician cannot provide any of the above, they should immediately contact the police. They must also not make any payment of municipal services other than using details reflected on their municipal account statement,” Fezani answered.

The Herald further asked about the people who did show up at Van der Walt’s premises to disconnect his electricity.

“No attempt was made to disconnect his service as the municipality is clearly aware of his disputes, and we are in the process of finalising the issue. The attempt to disconnect his service was by someone posing to be from the municipality. The municipality does suspend credit control action on accounts that are in dispute, provided it is not used as an excuse to not make regular payments to the accounts. A dispute does not absolve one from making regular payments to their account, which we have seen being abused by some customers, and we will definitely be disconnecting such customers,” Fezani concluded.