Two men nabbed in alleged meter tampering as revenue collection drive resumes

With the Tshwane metro revenue connection campaign resuming this week, two men have been arrested and are in custody at the Pretoria West police station for alleged meter tampering.

Tshwane metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the two were set to appear in court soon and were facing charges of illegal tampering with essential infrastructure and illegal connection.

“The Tshwane metro is working with the Department of Home Affairs to determine the suspects’ immigration status,” he said.

Bokaba said the two were nabbed on Monday, when officials were on a revenue collection drive commonly known as #TshwaneYaTima when they spotted suspicious activity at a certain property.

“They immediately alerted members of the TMPD who reacted swiftly and arrested the men on the spot.”

Bokaba said Tshwane reiterated its warning to members of the public that were tampering with its infrastructure illegally, that they would face the wrath of the law, in addition to paying hefty fines for their crime.

“The city commends the intrepid TMPD officials for acting swiftly by apprehending the suspects.”

He said the #TshwaneYaTima campaign was in full swing this week, collecting revenue and disconnecting the services of defaulting customers.

“Customers whose accounts are in arrears are urged to make contact with the city’s customer care centres across all the seven regions to make payment arrangements to avoid having their services discontinued,” said Bokaba.

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The metro faced disruptions last week from the illegal strike, which saw services such as waste, electricity and water being hit, leaving the metro unable to attend to its recent established disconnection campaign.

The disconnection campaign had been on a sabbatical for almost two weeks, since the metro had introduced it as a permanent solution to recoup owed funds from defaulting Tshwane businesses, embassies, residents and government departments and entities.

The Tshwane metro have recently revealed that its debtors’ book had been standing at concerning figures of over R17-billion, with R1.3-billion being owed by government departments and embassies, R4-billion owed by businesses within Tshwane and R8-billion by residential customers.

The metro said since the campaign, the metro had managed to recoup R13-million owed by embassies earlier this month.

“We disconnected some, others paid and made arrangements. The amount now owed is R3-million. We are serious, you use our services you have to pay.”

Tshwane metro mayoral spokesperson Sipho Stuurman said since the beginning of the campaign, they recouped over R700-million.

Previously, Tshwane metro’s aggressive drive to recover outstanding debts, had also turned its focus on possibly corrupt officials within its ranks who were illegally connecting businesses and homes.

“We are not naïve,” said Stuurman.

“We know there is a possibility of some of our employees being in cahoots with rogue companies.”

A letter by the mayor to the staff highlighted that any staff who cooperated with any business or entity to reconnect services illegally will face “severe consequences”.

Any businesses or residents caught with illegal connections will be fined around R600 000, he said.

“And no reconnections will be made until both the fine and the defaulting amount were paid to the metro.”

Several illegal connections were found throughout the metro since the beginning of its drive.

“We have already fined a couple of companies. The metro is very serious about illegal connections.”

He said the fine was a fixed amount, regardless of the size of the business.

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