Court halts payment for doomed smart meters
Tshwane metro was on Wednesday prevented by the Pretoria High Court to make an almost R1 billion rand payment to Peu Capital Partners, the company responsible for rolling out smart electricity meters in the city.
A payment of R950 million to Peu Capital Partners by the Tshwane metro was temporarily halted by the North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday.
The decision by the court followed a successful urgent application by the civil rights organisation AfriForum, which argued the municipality had tried to “sneak through” the massive payment to Peu with the knowledge that the ill-fated contract for the city’s smart pre-paid electricity was not above board.
The court made an interim order preventing the payment of amounts totalling R950 million to Peu, giving the Tshwane metro until 5 July to give reasons why the order should not be made permanent.
AfriSake, a division of AfriForum, filed the urgent application after it learnt that the metro was about to pay over the money.
The controversial multi-billion rand contract between the metro and Peu was cancelled in May last year, after the deal had been found to be irregular.
National government had warned Tshwane on several occasions not to enter into the contract, saying it was, among other reasons, too expensive.
The metro however, concluded the contract with Peu and smart electricity meters were rolled out in the city.
During the 2014/15 financial year, Peu was paid some R830 million despite only 12 900 smart meters had been installed.
The contract was later cancelled and although the municipality stressed there had been no cancellation penalties to be paid to Peu, the exact exit agreement between Tshwane and Peu was never disclosed.
At the time however, the metro said because of the smart meters that had already been installed and serviced by Peu, there were still some contractual obligations regarding the cancelled contract.
The court heard on Wednesday the bulk of the more than R1 billion of irregular spending by the Tshwane metro during the last financial year as pointed out by the auditor-general, could be attributed to the Peu contract.
Also read:
Abrupt end to smart electricity meters
New electricity smart meter rollout for east of Pretoria
Imminent switch of households to Smart Prepaid Electricity
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