Johannesburg - Eskom announced on Tuesday it had recovered revenue to the tune of almost one billion rand through its Operation Khanyisa.
Maboe Maphaka, senior manager for energy trading and sales forecasting at Eskom, said in a statement that since its launch in 2010, Operation Khanyisa (Switch On) had helped with the recovery of approximately R400 million in revenue lost due to electricity theft, and helped protect a further R500 million worth of energy from being lost.
Operation Khanyisa is a national partnership campaign established to fight electricity theft and related energy losses in South Africa.
The revenue recovery came mainly from fines and reconnection fees paid, as well as from revenue recovery charges calculated on the period of time that a customer was found to have not been paying for the electricity, Maphaka said during a presentation at the Africa Utility Week conference taking place in Cape Town.
On preventing energy loss, he said the figure was derived from the reduction in distribution energy losses, which currently stood at 6.82 percent, down from 2013’s figure of 7.12 percent when Eskom lost approximately R4.1 billion to electricity theft, Maphaka added.
Maphaka said: “It is no secret that this is a critical time for Eskom with revenue recovery and protection being one of the key priorities for the utility. It is encouraging to see how the approach of combining enforcement, compliance behaviour change, customer education and community mobilisation makes a real impact in driving legal, safe and efficient power usage and help to unlock revenue streams.”
Operation Khanyisa’s partners included Eskom, Crime Line, Proudly South African, Business Against Crime South Africa, Business Unity South Africa and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).
In 2013, Eskom’s Energy Losses Management Programme (ELP) took a more stringent approach in the fight against electricity theft when it commenced the implementation of a Customer Compliance Approach (CCA).
The CCA combined meter auditing, investigation and enforcement, with customer education and awareness in an integrated roll-out targeting hot spot areas with high energy and revenue losses, he said.
“The CCA is currently being implemented in hot spot areas in the Free State, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and North West provinces,” said Maphaka.
The CCA had resulted in the arrest of 58 people for electricity theft and the opening of 34 cases on the court roll, and also led to the clearing of 1.4 million illegal prepaid electricity units from customers’ meters.
Maphaka said many of the successes would not have been possible without the help from members of the public who heeded the call to report electricity theft by sending anonymous tip-offs.
ANA