The City of Johannesburg says it will continue cutting lights in communities which do not pay for electricity, saying the city was not only targeting a certain class of people.
This comes after angry residents in the middle income community of Naturena protested against their electricity being switched off this week, telling City Power revenue protection teams to switch off the lights at nearby informal settlements first.
City Power eventually abandoned their mission after only disconnecting 20 houses in the community which owes over R309 million.
City Power also said out of 3 000 residents who had switched to prepaid electricity, only half were paying for electricity while many had illegally bypassed the system costing the City R90m in the past year alone.
Joburg Councillor Jack Sekwaila, the MMC for Infrastructure Services, said the City of Johannesburg was not meeting it's goal of collecting R4.7 billion monthly due to a poor culture of paying for services.
"We are concerned about the level of non-payment and theft of electricity across the City of Johannesburg. As a City we have a target of R4.7 billion that we are supposed to be collecting monthly and we are not collecting it.
“Residents have an obligation to pay for their services. We are not going to tolerate defaulters and those who illegally connect to our services," said Sekwaila.
He said it was an illusion that a certain profile of customers was being targeted and subjected to electricity disconnections.
“It is wrong for residents to threaten City officials doing their job. And we are going to intensify these operations, especially on hijacked buildings. Our operations do not target a particular class of residents.
“We were in Kya Sands informal settlement, we did Naturena, we were in Midrand, and we will be going to every customer who owes the City to ensure we collect every cent owed," said Sekwaila.
Meanwhile, officials returned to the inner city to complete the operation which was hindered by threats a week ago. Last week, they disconnected just one out of four targeted buildings, but when they returned on Wednesday they found the building had been illegally reconnected.
Officials have now removed the whole distribution board.
Councillor Mgcini Tshwaku, the MMC for Public Safety, confirmed one of the buildings was disconnected during last week's operation and was found reconnected on Wednesday.
"It is unheard of that municipal officials are refused to do their work by residents like what we heard happened here last week.
"We cannot allow anarchy in our City, and we will work with other service departments to ensure that every cent is collected.
"We have agreed to visit more of these hijacked buildings to enforce law and order," said Tshwaku.
Meanwhile, Tshwaku told Eyewitness News they were investigating 188 hijacked buildings in the Joburg Inner City and they had suspicion that those who were responsible for the hijacked buildings were allegedly working with rogue officials, lawyers and Deeds Office staff who were “irregularly changing the details of individuals”.
“When you wake up in the morning, you don't own that building,” said Tshwaku, who explained that that was how they took control of the buildings in some instances.
Investigations are ongoing.
Reflecting on the disconnection drive in Midrand, acting City Power chief executive, Stanley Shabangu, said businesses and residents owed R300m.
Several businesses, a school and a townhouse complex were disconnected. They owed just under R14m.
Shabangu said they were urging those in arrears to approach their nearest service delivery centre to make arrangements before they found themselves disconnected.
“We regard these operations as a last resort,” he said.
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