Warning for complexes and estates in Joburg

The City of Joburg has alerted residents in complexes and estates that it will be spending 2025 conducting a comprehensive audit of electricity meters—with massive fines for those who’ve been tampering with them.

The audit will be city-wide, it said, but will pay specific attention to residential estates and complexes.

The programme will be implemented from January 2025 and carry on through to December 2025.

It said the programme will contribute to improved service delivery and accurate utility management for all residents.

“The city requests full cooperation from estates and complex residents during the meter audit process. The city is confident that the successful completion of the meter audit will assist to resolve many of the queries arising from meter reading,” it said.

Joburg said that city officials often struggle to gain access to complexes and estates to obtain accurate meter readings, which are crucial to produce municipal statements.

In this vein, it said that it has appointed Omnitell Tech to conduct the meter audits for estates and complexes across the city, and that the audit teams will be clearly identifiable to allay security concerns.

The authorised audit team will always:

• Display city-approved identification
• Follow strict security and access protocols
• Minimise disruption to residents
• Operate during standard business hours (08h00-17h00)
• Comply with all estate/complex security requirements

Massive fines

The focus on complexes and estates comes as the city uncovered a swathe of meter tampering in these areas in 2024.

The city was forced to convert thousands of ‘non-vending’ prepaid meters in affluent areas and properties belonging to businesses in 2024.

These are meters that had been non-vending for over three months and were found to have been bypassed, delivering free electricity.

Power utility, City Power, has already kicked off the new year by disconnecting hundreds of homes that were using bypassed meters.

Investigations have found that residents have been paying between R2,000 and R5,000 to third parties or unscrupulous utility employees to tamper with the meters.

However, if this is found to be the case, guilty households will be paying a lot more in penalties.

The utility warned that customers who tampered with their meters would be penalised, with a fine of more than R14,000 for single-phase connections.

Penalties can potentially exceed R30,000 for houses with three-phase connections to replace a tampered meter.

“City Power has previously warned customers about the consequences of meter tampering, yet some individuals continue to engage in this illegal activity.

“We want to make it clear that City Power will no longer tolerate this behaviour. All our customers are required to pay for the electricity they consume, and bypassing meters not only undermines the system but also puts additional strain on the entire community and could potentially lead to safety risks for residents within the complex,” it said.

The zero-tolerance approach comes as power utility Eskom and the national and provincial government puts increasing pressure on the major metros to pay their bills.

Eskom named and shamed the City of Joburg in December 2024 as owing R5.3 billion in unpaid electricity bills to the utility.

Joburg, along with the City of Tshwane, saw triple-digit growth in this debt, marking a veritable crisis for the metros.

Eskom has taken legal action against the City of Tshwane on multiple instances because of non-payment, and threatened to cut power to the City of Joburg late last year over its unpaid bills.

The doubling and quintupling of Eskom debts in Tshwane and Joburg reflect the deepening crises in these two metros, which have faced breakdowns in service delivery and collapsing infrastructure amid cheap politicking and power struggles among political parties.