{"id":238197,"date":"2018-04-22T16:07:17","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T14:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=238197"},"modified":"2018-04-20T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T15:00:00","slug":"how-much-it-costs-eskom-to-collect-a-single-electricity-meter-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/238197\/how-much-it-costs-eskom-to-collect-a-single-electricity-meter-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"How much it costs Eskom to collect a single electricity meter reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Electricity meters are have long been a point of contention in South Africa, with numerous horror<\/a> <\/strong>stories where meters were incorrectly tracked or incorrectly read.<\/p>\n

With power provider Eskom now under close scrutiny for its massive expense bill, questions have also been raised over how much the state-owned enterprise is actually spending on reading these metres.<\/p>\n

As part of a recent parliamentary questions and answers session,COPE’s Willie Madisha asked minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan how much it costs to send out a contractor to read one of these metres.<\/p>\n

He also inquired how much the costs differ for residential, rural and business readings.<\/p>\n

According to Gordhan,\u00a0Eskom\u2019s total costs for meter reading for the financial year 2016\/17 was R70.4 million, and the costs for the current year, as at January 2018, is R60.7 million<\/p>\n

“For small power users, which include urban households, rural households and farms, meters are read by meter reading contractors and rates are largely determined by accessibility, density and terrain,” Gordhan said.<\/p>\n

The minister further broke down the costs which include:<\/p>\n