LOUISE FLANAGAN and ANNA COX
LESS than a quarter of Soweto residents pay their Eskom electricity bills – and the debt is getting bigger.
Now Soweto customers can expect prepaid and tamper-proof meters to be installed.
“Customer debt has doubled in rand value over the past three to four years. It is growing fastest in Soweto, where it includes historical debt,” Eskom said in its 2011 annual report.
The report – for the financial year which ended in March – was released yesterday.
The report doesn’t give details of the amount of the Soweto debt but indicates that most customers there don’t pay.
“The collection of revenue from small power users in Soweto remains a challenge… The payment levels from these customers, expressed as a percentage of billed revenue, was 22 percent,” said Eskom.
This is a drop from 32 percent last year.
Eskom said total debt owed to it by the end of March was R2.8 billion. The utility said a “substantial portion” was debt in “problematic areas”, including Soweto.
Soweto is probably responsible for most of this R2.8bn debt.
In November 2009, an Eskom document submitted to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa), motivating a price increase request, referred to the Soweto debt problem.
“The challenge with distribution debt collection is localised to Gauteng, with 90 percent of outstanding debt over 90 days coming from Soweto,” Eskom said in the Nersa document.
Eskom’s annual report said a turnaround strategy for Soweto debt was being developed.
“The strategy will focus on persuading Soweto customers to voluntarily change their behaviour and become legal power users,” said Eskom.
The utility said this would include a marketing campaign and incentives to encourage good behaviour.
Split meters and prepaid meters are also part of the solution, a strategy which Eskom has referred to in previous annual reports. Split meters are meters in which the measurement unit is in a separate container from the user interface unit, designed to limit tampering with the meters.
Eskom is aware of the difficulties of trying to install prepaid and split meters in Soweto.
“Significant stakeholder and political support at local and national government level is required to ensure the successful roll out of this new strategy,” warned the report.
The debt which municipalities owe Eskom peaked at about R400m in November last year but was down to about R100m by March, mainly because of the timing of National Treasury payments to municipalities.
Meanwhile, Chiawelo residents are planning a protest march on Friday at the Protea magistrate’s court in support of five residents charged with public violence.
They were arrested after the residents started illegally reconnecting their prepaid electricity meters at the weekend.
About 90 residents had by-passed the meters, prompting Eskom officials to disconnect them last week. The community threatened the Eskom employees with violence and chased them from the area.
Residents claim that prepaid electricity is too expensive.
On Sunday, police arrested the five during a protest in the area.
Lehlohonolo Shale said protesters would gather at the City of Joburg soccer grounds in Chiawelo Extension 1 at 8am on Friday.
“We will be marching on the court in solidarity with the five residents who will be appearing at 8.30am. People are angry. We have been objecting to the pre-paid meters for years, but no one listens.”
Eskom spokeswoman Hilary Joffe said the Chiawelo project was successful, and was done with community participation.