Pre-paid upgrades good news for north residents
Residents who have issues with their pre-paid meters are encouraged to report it to the metro on 079 183 8766.
Problems with pre-paid meters might be a thing of the past soon for residents as the Tshwane metro is planning to upgrade its current system to keep it working beyond 2024.
The move has been welcomed by many residents.
“I didn’t have any problems with our pre-paid meter until a few months ago,” north resident Tania Schoeman told Rekord.
“I couldn’t load my tokens.”
Schoeman said she had to wait for over four hours in the dark for assistance from the Tshwane metro.
“I just know that I will have trouble with it again this month and then I will have to call the metro people out to connect my electricity.
“When I asked if they can replace my meter, they said that they had more problems with the new meter and advised me to stick to my old one,” she said.
Network errors and part issues are some of the problems faced by pre-paid meter owners in Amandasig, which result in residents not being able to load electricity.
Ward 4 councillor Petrus Molope said that these were the main complaints he got from residents in the area.
Pretoria resident Constant Swanevelder highlighted that the current systems were often offline, resulting in people not being able to buy any pre-paid electricity.
In the past, there were problems with buying tokens because the system was offline for days at a time.
“That is not a problem right now. But I think most of the people who complain about the system may have issues with a small part of the overall system. And that makes them negative about the entire system.”
He, however, said that he doesn’t believe the new system would curb illegal connections, adding that it would only irritate people who were trying to abide by the law.
“Criminals will still bypass the system, connect electricity illegally and sell tokens not provided by the municipality.
“The problem is that the root cause of the problem is not addressed, and that is the criminal elements in our society, failure of law, as well as lack of well-paid employees,” he said.
Swanevelder added that the only issue he had was that when the municipality owed money to customers, chances were very slim that they might get it back.
“I must also say that my issue with the subtracting of outstanding fees is when you have a legitimate reason with disputing an account.
“This way you are forced to pay even when you do not owe them any money. My experience is that when the municipality owes you money, you will not get it back.”
Rekord previously reported on the Tshwane metro upgrading its current systems to be compliant with new credit token numbers that will cost R5.2-million.
ALSO READ: Prepaid meters installed in all Pretoria homes soon
The metro’s planned upgrade is scheduled after the Standard Transfer Specification Association (STSA) director Don Taylor said millions of meters were facing a crisis of non-functionality by 2024.
Tshwane MMC for utilities Daryl Johnston confirmed that the updating of the pre-paid meters was due to a standard requirement to update the base date to ensure that tokens continue to be accepted.
“Once our servers are updated, we will begin updating customers’ meters as part of a year-long project. We anticipate completing this process by the end of 2023.”
Johnston said the upgrade would ensure that the metro pre-paid meter project was completed soon, allowing customers to operate without problems.
Residents who have issues with their pre-paid meters are encouraged to report it to the metro on 079 183 8766.
Do you have more information about the story?
Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
