Defaulting customers in the City of Tshwane must brace themselves to have their electricity and water services disconnected as the metro this week relaunched the aggressive revenue-collection campaign known as Tshwane Ya Tima.
The campaign is targeting customers whose accounts are in arrears, and at least 70 households were disconnected on the first day of the campaign led by MMC for Finance Jacqui Uys.
Uys said the revenue-collection campaign sought to disconnect services to defaulting clients who run up high service bills and fail to pay the City.
She said the campaign was back in full swing and would target all non-paying customers, including businesses, individual households and residential estates.
This week the City’s group financial services issued 188 disconnection job cards, mostly for residential households, worth about R50 million, due to money owed to the municipality.
Uys said: “From this list, 70 accounts were immediately and successfully disconnected in various areas. Along with the disconnections, the City also imposes steep fines for meter tampering and illegal connections.”
According to her, it was worth noting that this was just the beginning of the campaign.
“We are also targeting about 1 500 high-end defaulting consumers who owe the City billions of rand,” she said.
She appealed to residential estate managers to allow City meter readers to do their jobs and not block access.
“It is important that we work together but, if necessary, we will use law enforcement. As the MMC for Finance, I want to emphasise that the City needs revenue to deliver services and to honour commitments to creditors, such as Eskom and Rand Water,” she said.
She further thanked residents who pay for their accounts on time and in full.
In the same breath, Uys said that all defaulting customers ought to come forward and make payment arrangements to keep their accounts in good standing.
“We are firm in our stance that the financial rescue of the City is non-negotiable, therefore, every effort must be made to restore the City to a financially healthy position as quickly as possible,” she said.
Last month, the city said it had enforced credit control measures in a bid to recoup the more than R22 billion it is owed, saying that all residents and customers must pay for the municipal services they consume.
That was in reaction to calls made by the Lotus Gardens, Atteridgeville and Saulsville Civic Association (Lasca) calling on people to defy the payment of rates and services in solidarity with defaulting customers whose prepaid cards were blocked in December.
The City also accused Lasca of having actively prevented and harassed city officials from reading meters in areas where they purport to be representing residents.
Pretoria News