Tshwane begins disconnecting utility services to customers in arrears
“Next week, the campaign would take a different dimension and focus on complexes and estates, before moving to residential areas.”
The Tshwane metro has kicked off an aggressive drive to claw back billions of rands owed to it for water and electricity from defaulting entities, including government departments.
Services to government departments, embassies, businesses, residential customers and entities, were disconnected on Tuesday, to those who have failed to service their accounts.
Tshwane metro spokesperson, Selby Bokaba said the Tshwane metro was on a drive to cut electricity to 48 government buildings in the capital.
Bokaba said after making a series of impassioned pleas to customers to honour their municipal accounts by paying them in time and in full fell on deaf ears, the metro swiftly embarked on a campaign to recoup debt owed to it by its customers by disconnecting water and electricity services.
He said the buildings facing disconnection were those mainly under the Department of Infrastructure Development (DID) in Gauteng and businesses in the CBD, Sunnyside and parts of Centurion.
“The arrears are on property rates, water and electricity services.”
Bokaba said many of the businesses have been owing the metro figures of up to R5-million for months, which led to the unprecedented revenue collection campaign.
He said the metro would be targeting individuals and businesses as well as departments and embassies, whose accounts have been in arrears for more than three months.
Bokaba said the metro currently had a debt of over R17-billion owed by consumers.
“This debt makes it difficult for the city to fulfil its obligation of delivering essential and basic services to its residents and customers.”
On Tuesday a shopping centre in Lyttelton, Centurion had its water cut off as the metro said it owed R750 000, while a rented South African Police Service building in Centurion had its water also cut off for allegedly owing R2,5-million.
Watch:
City Manager Mmaseabata Mutlaneng arriving at the Lyttelton Shopping Center to switch off services due to non payment. Arrears ammount is R 705 912.83 #CoTRevenueCollection pic.twitter.com/xsTnbBCXCS
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) February 8, 2022
Other buildings facing utility service discontinuation included the State Theatre, the Department of Home Affairs in Centurion and a hotel in Centurion.
When we say No Fear, No Favour we mean it we are at the SANDF Navy headquarters to cut electricity, they owe us R3 197 428,81 in property rates #CoTRevenueCollection #TshwaneYaTima pic.twitter.com/iWjuE3d3TA
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) February 9, 2022
We are at Morning Star Express Hotel they are R 573 667,86 in arrears we have cut the electricity #TshwaneYaTima #CoTRevenueCollection pic.twitter.com/cjRbwc9x5v
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) February 9, 2022
Bokaba said residential customers owed the Tshwane metro around R8-billion, businesses R4-billion, while the outstanding amount that make up the R17-billion debt was owed by government departments, entities and embassies.
“Tshwane is also in the process of attaching bank accounts of certain entities in a concerted effort to recoup monies owed to the municipality, which would go a long way to fast track projects aimed at improving service delivery.”
Bokaba said the metro would this week focus on a number of big businesses, 100 suburbs and 48 government accounts.
He said if there were any customers that wanted to query their accounts, they were welcome to contact the city virtually through the outreach programme.
“Next week, the campaign would take a different dimension and focus on complexes and estates, before moving to residential areas.”
Bokaba said the metro was on high alert to respond swiftly and ruthlessly to customers that illegally reconnected electricity soon after being disconnected.
“Tshwane would like to issue a stern warning to customers that tamper with our infrastructure and breach water and electricity meters that we will not hesitate to slap the offending customers with hefty fines.”
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Acting city manager Mmaseabata Mutlaneng said the accelerated disconnection campaign was aimed to drive home the message that if you don’t pay for the services you consume, credit control measures would be implemented without fear or favour.
“We urge our customers to start making arrangements so we don’t have to cut services.”
Mutlaneng said the metro was targeting all who owed the metro and not just government departments.
“We have entities that have owed us for over a year.”
The drive to recoup owed money also stems from the Tshwane metro owing Eskom R635-million for electricity services.
The Tshwane metro said it had a good reason why it delayed paying power utility Eskom.
Tshwane chief of staff, Jordan Griffiths said the R635-million was the bill for January only.
“This R635-million is the bill for January. Now Eskom issues that bill by the 17th and expects their payment by the 18th. In this particular month, the metro indicated to Eskom that we were not in a position to pay it immediately,” he said.
Griffiths said one of the challenges of lack of payment was due to some of the metro’s key grants used to fund operational expenses, had not been fully paid yet by the national treasury, and would only come in around February and March.
He said the metro had been left in a position to fund much of its operations out of its existing cash flow.
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