Sparks fly over prepaid meters
Eskom under fire for poor consultation
ESKOM was yesterday lambasted for its failure to adequately consult Soweto residents on plans to roll out prepaid electricity meters in the township.
The power utility was heavily criticised by the parliamentary committee on public enterprises and traditional affairs during a petition hearing on prepaid electricity metering yesterday.
Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, the chairperson of the committee, said intervention was needed between Eskom and residents who had reacted with hostility to the rollout.
“The issues we picked up (during the meeting with Eskom representatives) was a lack of communication. Eskom lacked strategic communication, which must involve the communities,” Letsatsi-Duba said.
“The biggest problem with Eskom is that they didn’t communicate their intentions. As long as you don’t involve people in whatever you’re doing, there will always be misconceptions,” she said.
Letsatsi-Duba said introducing prepaid meters would allow Eskom to tackle illegal connections and safety, and make inroads in resolving the R8 billion debt owed to the utility.
“As long as community members are not informed, they will resist. It’s human nature,” she said.
Letsatsi-Duba said residents needed to be more open to the installation of prepaid meters as it would be beneficial to the economy as well.
“If we don’t address electricity theft, the economy will continue suffering. Eskom made a pronouncement that it was losing R4.4bn to theft of electricity. This (money) can be used for other projects that will benefit them as well,” she said.
DA constituency head in Soweto East Tsepo Mhlongo said Eskom’s approach in installing the meter boxes was forceful and lacked consultation. He said Eskom owed the community an apology for having police presence when installing the meters.
“I think Eskom did not do feasibility studies. About 48 000 boxes have been installed in the past four years and there is still a debt of R8bn. They didn’t know what they were getting themselves into,” Mhlongo said.
Eskom’s operations and maintenance senior manager Daphne Mokwena said the utility communicated as best it could but had not expected the reaction it got.
“We have communicated and called community meetings but I assume there were customers who could not make it to the meetings because of certain reasons. We tried our best to get everyone involved, including councillors, to communicate with residents about the importance of the meetings,” Mokwena said.
She said some staff members tasked with door-to-door campaigns in a bid to inform residents about the prepaid boxes were greeted with hostility.
“They were not allowed to interact on a one-on-one basis with customers to explain to them what the installation project was about and what the benefits were,” she said.
“At the moment, we have installed 49 000 meter boxes and have 180 000 customers in Soweto who still have a debt that is based on a post-paid system. And they need to pay for their debts,” she said.
Mokwena said those who could not afford to settle their debt would have to allow Eskom to install prepaid meters because it would make them eligible for a 36-month suspension of their debt.
“I would suggest that the pensioners should allow Eskom to install the meters because this would help them with the arrangement where in 36 months we can monitor their behaviours as customers and make sure nothing untoward is happening with their accounts. Eskom will then suspend the debt permanently,” she said.