Electricity thieves within the ranks of Eskom and City Power are doing a roaring trade by allegedly selling electricity tokens to the public illegally.
According to information at Sunday World’s disposal, the power suppliers have lost millions of rand through the syndicates over the past 15 years as the illegal operation is said to have apparently started in 2007. This has resulted in the power utility suffering huge financial losses.
The alleged thieves reportedly push their illegitimate business on social media to lure potential clients. The modus operandi also involves the criminal syndicates using the power utilities’ managers and employees to defraud the system.
“In this business, criminals and rogue Eskom managers update illegal electricity meters on the tariffs through ghost vending machines called Credit Dispenser Unit (CDU),” a source said.
A forensic investigator has revealed that the power utility is suffering “a lot through theft and corruption which emanate from CDU with the collaboration of senior managers and employees of Eskom who easily collude with the criminal elements to loot and defraud the power utility”.
“Over the years Eskom has been experiencing electricity theft, which has drastically affected the collection of the entity’s revenue. This problem persists to this day and continues to have a detrimental effect on the power utility’s viability,” said the investigator.
He added that “as early as 2007, reports of Eskom’s loss of millions due to fraudulent electricity vouchers and electricity illegal vending syndicates throughout the country, using old and manual CDUs stolen at Eskom, have been widespread. The employees act fraudulently to help the syndicates to loot the system. Not only is this a loss of revenue to Eskom and the
fiscus, but the proceeds from these sales are earmarked to fund illegal activities and in the process bolster the crime rate in the country,” he said.
He added that the criminal activities were hampering Eskom’s efforts to recover from bankruptcy as it fails to collect revenue as people buy electricity from criminal syndicates.
“These criminal syndicates operate on a large scale from different areas across the country. They even hire runners to sell illegal electricity to unsuspecting clients. They even sell electricity to pensioners at pay point stations, including big factories and workshops as well as illegal mining companies. Our investigations have revealed that internal staff members at Eskom IT customer care
divisions work together with syndicates in order to fully operate vending machines offline. These corrupt employees help the criminals to update the tariffs on their illegal CDU, each time the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) approves new electricity tariffs,” said the investigator.
Sunday World spoke to three electricity sellers who said they were working as middlemen to sell electricity. They alleged that there were kingpins who “work from behind the scenes”.
One of the sellers said: “This is a mafia network. We have bigger guys for whom we work. They pay us once we have sold electricity to our clients. Our business is the same as the one used by zama zamas. It is an organised crime cartel involving bosses and employees from Eskom,” he said.
“We are runners and recruit clients and sell them electricity at slashed prices compared to what they would pay when they were to buy their electricity legally. We are using social media to market the business and anyone who wants electricity will send me a WhatsApp and I will demand they pay first.
“Once the money reflects on my phone, another person is standing next to the ATM to withdraw the cash. Then we send the voucher to the buyer. We don’t shortchange our clients. We know that if we cheat them, they will blacklist us, but once they see how effective we work, they make referrals and this helps the business to grow,” said the illegal seller of electricity vouchers.
Another vendor said it was not only Eskom electricity vouchers the syndicate sold. “They also ply their illegal trade in selling municipality vouchers they get from senior municipality connections, among others.”
“Inside municipality entities, there are people we work with. It is worth noting that that these people inside provide us with passwords to bypass the system. The kingpins are the owners of the ghost CDU machines, while technicians from various entities, including Eskom, provide us with the information, while runners collect supply group code (SGC), tariff number and meter number from customers who buy from us illegally,” said the third vendor.
The investigator said that the method used by the syndicates was called “Pepeta”, which allows clients to buy one electricity voucher and get another free of charge.
“When any updates are done in the Eskom system or any other energy supply utilities, managers and technicians who collude with the syndicates copy information on memory sticks, hard drives and stiffy discs, and then give syndicates to update their own illegal CDU machines,” he said.
Syndicates are selling 800 units electricity units from R150 with 4800 as the highest for R650.
At the time of going to print we had not received a reply after sending questions to Eskom’s spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha.
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