Stumbling around in the dark, having cold baths and being forced to do outside cooking on a primus stove is the plight of the 77-year-old Francis Owen Smith of Dippie Road Centurion.
On Sunday, Francis Owen bought R500 of power for a prepaid electricity meter, but nothing happened when she tried to enter the digits.
“I recently moved into the new house. When I tried to punch the numbers into the meter, it refused to register the prepaid amount. Living next to the municipality’s offices in Centurion I walked on Monday over with my meter in my hand and explained to them what happened,” she said.
“I handed the meter in at the J-section, which has to do with complaints. An attendant then told me that there was something wrong with the keyboard of the meter and they would have it fixed. I was given the reference number 122/19.”
She had since been time and again at the offices of the municipality to try and sort out the problem.
“I spoke to numerous people. None has been able to help me. The last person I spoke to told me, yes, they’ve handed it in for repairs and would return with a new meter. Subsequent to this, my daughter phoned them and was told that technicians visited the house but could not find a meter outside and returned,” she said.
“With further enquiries I was given a new reference number of 228/22 but have not received any response. Meanwhile, I have to do my cooking outside on a primus. I have to bath in cold water and I stumble around in the dark at night without any electricity power. Even my cellphone I cannot charge.”
Rekord spoke to Thabo Shakame, the supervisor of the call centre for the electricity department. Shakame said that technicians went on Friday to the house of Owen Smith and their report was that it was not a power failure but a problem with the meter.
As these technicians were not in the same department of those who attend to prepaid meters, the complaint was given through to the relevant department at 12:29 the same day.
“They promised they will attend to it. We hope that the problem will be sorted out before the end of the day,” Shakame said.
Tshwane metro is currently busy installing pre-paid smart meters at various estates in the East of Pretoria.
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