{"id":836844,"date":"2025-09-04T12:29:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T10:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=836844"},"modified":"2025-09-04T12:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T10:29:12","slug":"huge-prepaid-meter-problem-in-joburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/836844\/huge-prepaid-meter-problem-in-joburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge prepaid meter problem in Joburg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The City of Johannesburg’s power utlity, City Power, has stopped rolling out postpaid to prepaid electricity meter conversions as it investigates why some customers have stopped buying electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement comes amid a growing illegal connection and meter tampering crisis in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said the conversions are being done to support access and service delivery, but it has enountered a significant problem were some converted meters are becoming non-vending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the new prepaid meters are not purchasing electricity, which could be a wider signifier of illegitimate electricity use, illegal connections, or meter tampering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utility also said there were other discrepancies on some accounts cropping up after conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These include some accounts not being accurately reflected on City Power\u2019s systems after conversion, and the impact of prepaid tariff structures, which until July 2024 excluded fixed service and network charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Power said that it cannot proceed with conversions while these issues are present and it has to conduct a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The temporary suspension will allow City Power to conduct a thorough investigation into the financial and operational impacts of all electricity meter conversions,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A dedicated task team has been established to conduct this review, and its findings and recommendations will be tabled in two months.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utility said that the suspension will not affect existing prepaid or postpaid customers who can continue to purchase electricity and receive services as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, electricity spply should be unaffected and existing customers can use their meters normally. However, no new conversions will take place until 1 November 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The suspension is a temporary measure to allow City Power to strengthen systems, tighten controls, and ensure that future conversions are handled accurately and in line with proper revenue protection standards,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This pause will also allow for a thorough review of the conversion process and the implementation of improved procedures.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problems have emerged amid backlash against the city’s fixed prepaid service fees, and growing cases of illegal connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Door-to-door meter audits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In August, the utility took action against communities by refusing to restore power to certain areas until it could verify that at least 80% of customers in those areas were purchasing electricity legitimately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, City Power said it had flagged a growing crisis of illegal connections and meter tampering in these areas, which were placing severe strain on infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Expensive hardware, such as mini-substations and transformers costing millions of rand and often taking weeks to source, are being repeatedly damaged, most often through overloading caused by unlawful connections,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said it is “inundated” with cases of damaged ground-mounted and pole-mounted transformers, and is already facing backlogs in sourcing replacement equipment due to the escalating rate of damage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To mitigate the problems, the utility is also now conducting comprehensive meter audits before replacing infrastructure, going door-to-door to assess a customer\u2019s electricity purchasing history, verify vending records, and confirm purchases from reputable vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Customers are urged to keep receipts or other proof of monthly electricity purchases. Please note that proof of electricity bought long ago at a minimal value will not suffice. For example, a R50 purchase made over a month ago will not qualify as adequate proof of vending,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will only consider consistent, reasonable monthly purchases as proof of vending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If less than 80% of customers in the affected area can’t provide proof that they have been purchasing electricity, City Power will not restore the power supply.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Where customers refuse to cooperate, the electricity supply will remain off indefinitely.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The City of Johannesburg’s power utility, City Power, has stopped rolling out postpaid to prepaid electricity meter conversions as it investigates why some customers have stopped buying electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":795886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[2016,7376,21160],"class_list":["post-836844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-city-of-johannesburg","tag-city-power","tag-prepaid-electricity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836851,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836844\/revisions\/836851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}