This emerged after a few residents burned tyres at street corners in the area last week, and the police advised smart meter service provider BXC not to enter the area for installations.

Experts and politicians have said that the SE7 situation exploded the myth that only townships were responsible for power theft, and also showed that installing smart meters was the best all-around solution to normalise the situation for business and residents.

Yvonne Coertze, DA councillor for Ward 9, including SE 7, said she and most residents supported smart meters because their installation would prevent power theft from collapsing the electricity infrastructure and ensure that those who paid for electricity in fact received it.

The extraordinarily high electricity theft rate in SE7 has placed a huge strain on supply and electricity infrastructure and has become intolerable for the municipality, which must still pay for the stolen power, to allow the situation to continue, sources told Vaalweekblad.

“Based on BXC work in SE7, we have seen a 40% bypass and illegal connection rate there, which is a massive burden on infrastructure and municipal finances from which service delivery must be resourced – here we see directly how power theft destroys service delivery,” said BXC project manager Dawid Dirks.

Yet a small group of residents seemed ready to protect power theft and ignore the growing demand for new smart meters and electricity infrastructure that the vast majority of residents wanted, said many SE7 residents.

SE7 electricity infrastructure faces the real possibility of total collapse, which will also deny power to paying customers, BXC, and the municipality have said.

High level talks were scheduled between BXC, the SA Police Service and the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) on Tuesday this week to find a strategy for continuing smart meter installations in SE7.

The installation process of smart meters involves removing illegal connections and bypasses, replacing or fixing the electricity infrastructure, and then monitoring for new bypasses, which are instantly picked up electronically once smart meters are installed.