The University of South Africa’s (Unisa) Florida Campus in Johannesburg, which was on the list of customers earmarked for Thursday’s disconnection, managed to pay off its R2.6 million debt on time.
City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, said the payment was made after the university ignored several intervention measures, including a pre-termination notice, to settle its debt that was sitting at a staggering R5 million.
“The institution eventually paid R2.5 million earlier in the month and another R2.6 million yesterday (Wednesday) to settle the debt in time and avoided facing a disconnection,” said Mangena.
Mangena added that the institution was one of the eight customers that was on the cut-off list for this week’s Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre (SDC) revenue operation.
The operation was held on Thursday in collaboration with law enforcement agencies, with the aim of recouping a total of R29 million owed by customers.
“Two other businesses in the area were also cut off during the operation for owing over R6 million each, along with two others that were sitting with debts of R1.7 million and R2.3 million, respectively,” he said.
According to Mangena, one of those businesses owing R6 million, operates heavy machinery and it was found to have illegally connected to our network.
“City Power is owed over R400 million by customers in the Roodepoort SDC supply area.”
Mangena said it was worrying that a number of businesses in the community are not only defaulting on payments, but are also illegally connected to the network and bypassing meters.
“Roodepoort is one of the communities plagued by vandalism and theft, resulting in high costs of repairs and material replacement for City Power.
“While we appreciate some strides made towards the protection of our infrastructure by the community, the high rate of non-payment of services is also crippling our resources,” he said.
Mangena said the disconnection drive is a last resort for City Power, and the utility would prefer if customers would make payment arrangements to settle their debts.
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