Joburg City Power has welcomed a recent court ruling against building hijackers who demanded the provision of free electricity and other municipal services.
This after the occupants of a building in Doornfontein took City Power to court demanding that illegal electricity connection be restored. However, the high court in Johannesburg ruled in favour of the electricity distributor, ruling that City Power has no obligation to provide municipal services to a hijacked building.
In a statement on Wednesday, City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava vowed to intensify a clampdown on buildings and businesses that are illegally connected to the utility’s network.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said: “We welcome this court ruling which comes at a time when we are ramping up our revenue-collection efforts. Illegally connecting electricity is theft and should be treated as such.
“The actions of those who hijack buildings are not different to the illegal connectors in most informal and formal settlements, and defaulters who have bypassed meters, or deliberately neglect to pay for electricity, which stifles our recovery efforts in term of revenue.”
Mashava has shifted the gear higher in efforts to collect revenue, instructing all the service delivery centres in the region to go after customers who owe the entity for electricity usage. This includes customers who can afford to pay but are not willing pay, including businesses and government departments.
“We are sitting at about R8-billion debt owed to City Power by customers across the City of Joburg. Over half of that is sitting with businesses and government departments. We have already started visiting those and have cut off several of them, and we will continue to cut their supply until we recover the last cent,” Mashava said.
The majority of City Power debt can be traced to the Inner City Service Delivery Centre, which owes about R3-billion. Another over R1-billion debt is shared among households and government departments, and the rest includes businesses and large power users.
The service delivery centres will each dedicate one week a month to conduct blitz operations around the areas they supply to collect the revenue owed to City Power.
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