Secunda residents were livid when contractors installed the new smart meters at their houses without prior notice.
To make matters worse, many residents of Wilge Street, Woltemade Street and Komati Street had no electricity on Thursday as well as on Friday after the meters were installed.
Those living in Kiepersol Street had no hot water after the contractors were there to install the new meters.
The letter residents received was dated 17 September and on this letter the deadline for the meters to be installed was August 2017.
At some houses, the contractors left the electricity boxes open and left.
Residents also had a problem with the units.
Before the new meters were installed, some had as much as 900 units on their meters, but after the new meters were installed all those units were gone.
In some cases the job of replacing the old meters with the new smart meters had to be redone and in other instances, residents’ new smart meters had to be replaced five times.
There were less problems with the installations on Saturday and Sunday.
The acting municipal manager, Mr Thisha Mhlanga, could not be reached for comment at time of going to press.
Read the complete story on the Echo newspaper front page here.
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