Pay up or deal with the consequences, the City of Ekurhuleni has warned, saying it plans to suspend electricity and water supply to households and businesses that refuse to pay for municipality’s services.
The debt-collection campaign, which started at the beginning of the year, has already seen businesses and hijacked buildings in Germiston cut off. This after the municipality said it is owed R30-billion, of which R24-billion is 90 days overdue.
Fanyana Nkosi, MMC for finance in Ekurhuleni, said: “The city applies credit control as approved by council.
“We have encouraged residents and businesses to make the necessary arrangements to honour their debts, if they are experiencing financial constraints. So, the residents and businesses need to settle their accounts immediately.”
A new SMS and e-mail campaign, dubbed #PayYourPart, will soon be activated by the city in an attempt to encourage customers to pay for services. The municipality further advised that defaulting customers should approach the city’s municipality offices to discuss alternative payment options.
The account holders who fail to make and honour their payment arrangements will have water supplies restricted and electricity supplies disconnected until proof of payment has been presented to officials at municipal’s offices.
“Residents are encouraged to visit their nearest customer care centres for advice and guidance if they have queries regarding their arrears.”
City Power continued in their aggressive revenue collection on Friday, this time in the Randburg area.
This cut-off operation is targeted at customers, ranging from businesses that include a shopping centre, key customers, government institutions and residential customers, who owe the power utility thousands of rand.
Meanwhile, the municipality has introduced a debt-rehabilitation incentive programme with the aim of assisting residential customers whose property market values do not exceed R1.5-million and whose accounts have been in arrears for a year.
Nkosi said: “The balance of the account on date of application approval excluding current account, and after 50% write-off will be placed in a consolidated arrangement account that will be written off incrementally over a period of three years.
“This is on condition that all [the incentive] scheme provisions are being complied with during that period.”
The move by Ekurhuleni follows that of the City of Tshwane and the City of Johannesburg who have been suspending electricity supply to defaulting customers since late in 2022 and early in 2023, respectively.
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