Primrose resident left in the dark for owing almost R200k to the City of Ekurhuleni

Michael Standing, a resident of Primrose, has been without electricity for a week after the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) disconnected his power because of unpaid bills.

Despite thinking that the CoE approved his account for indigent status, they informed him the application process had to start again.

Standing stated the problem began when he went to the CoE offices to renew his indigent status three years ago.

According to him, they informed him the application would not be renewed for several months and that his information was lost, requiring him to start the application process again.

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“They subsequently gave a disconnection notification to me while he was still waiting for the approval of his application,” he said.

According to the statement, he owes the CoE R185 416.

However, nobody in the city could accurately respond to his questions regarding how that sum is possible.

Standing expressed concern that the delay in restoring his power would impact his tenants, who may eventually leave.

He said the CoE informed him he needed to pay R2 000 to get his power restored.

Standing, who is without a job and struggling to make ends meet, is worried about how he will pay this amount to restore his power.

“My daughter moved away when she got married. I don’t have a job, and the grant money is all I have,” said Standing.

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CoE spokesperson Zweli Dlamini, said the amount owed to the city is R194 745.

“So R38 949.07 is needed to reconnect. The customer enjoyed three arrangements previously, which were not honoured. For the fourth arrangement, customers must pay 20% as per credit control policy,” said Dlamini.

“His power was disconnected because of the arrears on the account. The account holder applied to be registered as an indigent. When the fieldworker went to verify, they found there was a tenant in the yard.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t mention that to the office. That is why we declined his application.

He re-applied and we explained we needed documents including proof of a tenant and how much the tenant pays rent.

“He said his tenant refused to provide documents for him.

“On September 19, he visited our offices again and we explained to him that without all the relevant documents there was nothing we could do to assist him. The customer must re-apply for indigent status,” said Dlamini.

More disconnections:

GCN reported on September 13 that six businesses in Wadeville were without power after the MMC for Finance, Nkululeko Dunga disconnected them on August 25.

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All these businesses provided GCN with proof that they were not in arrears with their accounts.

The disconnections formed part of Dunga’s operation Siyacima Manje-Namhlanje, a campaign to recover over R24b owed to the municipality.

The MMC even took to social media on the day of disconnections to announce that those businesses owed the city close to R16m and that they also discovered illegal power connections.

One of the business owners, Nadine Pretorius from Alloy Business Trust, said they lost a lot of money in those six days.

“We had to halt our production and could not do our work. Even businesses with backups did not have enough power supply.

At the time, the CoE spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said he sent the GCN inquiry about the businesses being cut off to the office of Dunga.

GCN still awaits comment.