Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has vowed to “cut off the head of the snake” behind illegal connections and tampering with water and electricity connections through the launch of its amnesty programme.
MMC for Finance Peter Sutton said electricity theft by businesses and individuals, cost the City an estimated revenue of R470 million each year.
“We have a Mafia organisation in the City that is benefiting at the cost of taxpayers, and the poorest of the poor who desperately need help from the City; but we don’t have the finances to help them as it has gone into the pockets of certain groups and individuals.”
Sutton said the amnesty would provide a grace period to allow individuals and business owners guilty of electricity theft to be exempted from prosecution and fines under certain conditions.
This would be done to root out the “snake’s head” of the problem and remove from the City’s system individuals making illegal connections and tampering with infrastructure.
The City had also increased the fines for illegal connections and electricity theft to R200 000 for individual or household accounts and up to R10 million for business accounts.
The City would also pursue criminal charges and recoup lost income, spearheaded by a highly skilled multidisciplinary revenue-collection team, which had been allocated R68 million.
“Stealing revenue from the City that must go to basic service delivery and support the poorest of the poor is a crime. If you are an individual and business owner involved in electricity theft and tampering with prepaid meters, you … will face consequence management.”
Sutton stressed there were conditions for amnesty, which included submission of an application form and an affidavit, detailing how the tampering was undertaken and illegal connection installed, who facilitated the tampering or fraud on the account, to whom money was paid and the amount, and how frequently bribe money was paid.
The City reserved the right to grant and withdraw amnesty in cases of non-compliance, and the amnesty granted would be subject to the condition that a similar offence was not committed within a five-year period.
“This is us trying to be fair; before we come down on you like a ton of bricks, we want to give you an opportunity to come clean. So if you are guilty this is your opportunity to fix this.”
Pretoria News