Metro fines non-paying businesses R10-million each
Fines for illegal connections and electricity theft are R200 000 for households and R10-million for business accounts.
The Tshwane metro fined several Pretoria West businesses millions of rand for non-payment of services and illegal connections during a recent operation.
The revenue collection drive on February 9, targeted businesses as well as a government facilities in the CBD and Pretoria West believed to jointly owe the metro more than R50-million after repeatedly failing to pay their bills.
Mayor Randall Williams, joined by finance MMC Peter Sutton led the operation with other stakeholders.
“We also came across three properties that house a private school, a hair salon, hardware and scrapyards for cars, which were illegally connected,” said Williams.
He said they also discovered a metro substation was illegally feeding electricity to two nearby properties.
“Our teams immediately disconnected the illegal connections. We have since issued the businesses with illegal electricity connection fines of R10-million each.”
The metro said that revenue collection was important in any municipality to ensure effective operations and service delivery.
The metro urged the residents and businesses to settle their municipal accounts and said that it will continue its campaign to “disconnect services to defaulting clients and rip apart illegal connections”.
“Talk to us if you have problems with paying your account. We will help with payment arrangements. Don’t get tangled in corrupt practices. Fines for illegal connections and electricity theft are R200 000 for households and R10-million for business accounts.
“We have zero tolerance for illegal connections,” he said.
The metro also shut down an illegal waste storage and sorting business in the Pretoria CBD during another operation on Wednesday.
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