City emboldened to disconnect power to defaulting body corporates

THE City of Tshwane has been emboldened to challenge high court verdicts in favour of some body corporates that obtained interdicts barring the municipality from disconnecting electricity supply to them over unpaid accounts.

This follows the recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judgment overruling a high court interdict prohibiting the municipality from implementing its credit control measures at the Zambezi Retail Park.

The interdict was obtained by a sectional title unit owner in the body corporate of Zambezi Retail Park who had approached the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, after the City disconnected electricity supply to the retail park in April 2022.

The City successfully appealed the high court ruling at the SCA.

Finance MMC Jacqui Uys said the municipality intended to employ the ruling as a springboard for overturning previous verdicts in favour of other body corporates at the high court not to be cut off from the grid.

She said: “The body corporates who have bulk accounts with the City of Tshwane have the responsibility to pay the money that they collect from their tenants or business owners for the utilisation of water and electricity over to the City. Unfortunately in many cases this does not happen.”

In the instances of non-payment of municipal accounts, she said, the City had the right to exercise credit control by cutting off the bulk supply to the complex or the centre.

“However, there were a couple of cases where the City was taken to court by tenants to say that the municipality does not have the right to cut services and exercise credit control,” she said.

Uys referred to the recent SCA ruling overriding a previous high court verdict in favour of one of the body corporates.

The ruling noted that the municipality did have the right to cut off services to customers in arrears.

“The municipality is now intending to go to court to overturn some of the interdicts that are in place,” she said.

City spokesperson, Lindela Mashigo, said if the body corporate’s affairs were not well managed then sectional title unit owners, “must take recourse against the body corporate in terms of the applicable laws governing the functioning of sectional titles in the country”.

“The City is also calling on all customers, both business and residential, who are in arrears to settle their outstanding bills or make payment arrangements to settle as soon as possible,” he said.

Uys said the City had full intent to deliver notices for cut-off to all the tenants and the landlord at the Zambezi retail park.

She threatened that should they fail to settle their account, “we will come and cut off electricity and other services”.

The Pretoria

rapula.moantshe@inl.co.za