{"id":838231,"date":"2025-09-23T15:13:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=838231"},"modified":"2025-09-23T15:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:16:11","slug":"joburg-threatens-to-completely-remove-electricity-cables-and-meters-from-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/838231\/joburg-threatens-to-completely-remove-electricity-cables-and-meters-from-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"Joburg threatens to completely remove electricity cables and meters from properties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The City of Joburg has threatened to completely remove electricity infrastructure from the properties of its worst defaulters, who collectively owe the municipality R1 billion in debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city announced this week that it is launching an aggressive credit control initiative under the Project Lokisa, which could see over 1,300 residential customers lose access to electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city is threatening to remove all electricity infrastructure from these offenders, including electricity meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These customers have failed to pay their municipal accounts for more than a year and risk the possibility of losing their electricity meters due to their persistent non-payment and their refusal to come forward and make arrangements with the city,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kgamanyane Maphologela, Director for Communications and Stakeholder Engagement within Group Finance Department, said that, should these customers fail to settle their accounts or approach the city, meter removal is the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll identified customers have already received level 3 disconnection notices, which inform them of the action the city intends to take as far as the removal of electricity infrastructure at their properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Should they fail to come forward within the stipulated period, the city will act,\u201d Maphologela said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city noted that a level 3 disconnection is normally the last step it takes after a protracted period of chasing defaulters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city would have, amongst others, sent numerous pre-termination notices, reminders, and finally disconnection of services at customers\u2019 properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defaulters in question then moved to illegally reconnect themselves to municipal services, continuing to steal without paying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Level 3 disconnection for electricity services implies removing service connections such as cables, conductors and meters.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After level 3 disconnection has been implemented at the customer\u2019s property, the customer will have to re-apply for new service application process if they wish to be reconnected to the grid again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city warned customers who are behind with their payments, to immediately settle their outstanding accounts, or alternatively present themselves at any revenue Customer Service Centre to make payment arrangements with to avoid disconnections and legal action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Lokisa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The move to phsycially remove eletricity infrastructure is a particularly drastic move by the city, but comes amid prolonged periods of non-payment by residents who have racked up over R60 billion in debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The address the problem, the city launched Project Lokisa in June 2025, which aimed to collect this debt by targeting the worst offenders, including businesses and developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the measures introduced in the project is a new process to get clearance certificates for property sales, which sees the city take what is owed from the proceeds of the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The municipality previously identified the biggest defaulters in the metro, which include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Large electricity and water consumers with properties valued above R100 million;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • High-value residential properties valued at more than R5 million;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Commercial businesses;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Government departments and State-Owned Entities (SOEs).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The city has also been hit hard by residents not paying their bills and using illicit methods to bypass meters and billing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It was previously noted that thousands of \u2018rich\u2019 residents are part of the problem, with debts piling up in affluent suburbs where meters have been tampered with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While residents owe billions of rands in unpaid bills, the City of Joburg itself is also billions of rands in debt to utilities like Eskom, feeding the desperation to collect debts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The City of Joburg has threatened to completely remove electricity infrastructure for its worst defaulters who collectively owe the municipality R1 billion in debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":792888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[4280,7376],"class_list":["post-838231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-city-of-joburg","tag-city-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838231","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=838231"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838237,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838231\/revisions\/838237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}