Eskom counts on prepaid meters to fix nonpayment
IN AN attempt to rein in mounting debt, Eskom has budgeted R250m this financial year to install prepaid electricity meters in Soweto.
The utility had also allocated about R200m-R250m a year over the next five years to install meters in 180,000 houses in Soweto, Eskom’s manager for the prepaid metering project, Solly Matebula, said on Friday.
For many years, Eskom’s attempts to collect revenue in Soweto have been dogged by a culture of nonpayment dating back to the apartheid era, as well as residents’ inability to pay, coupled with technology that is vulnerable to theft.
In 2003, Eskom wrote off R1.4bn of arrears debt, but the figure has continued to climb, and efforts in the past few years to install prepaid meters have encountered community protests.
Mr Matebula said about 16% of Soweto customers had been paying accounts last year, representing collections of only R9m a month, out of potential revenue of R56m a month. There was also consider- able revenue loss through illegal connections, ghost vendors of prepaid electricity, and theft of equipment. When customers were cut off for nonpayment, they reconnected themselves.
Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said Eskom had reported in September that households in Soweto owed the utility R6bn. This has climbed to R7.5bn at present, for both current and arrears debt.
To address the problem, Eskom is installing prepaid split meters, not only in Soweto, but also in Sandton, Midrand and in parts of Ekurhuleni. In Soweto, it has about 70,000 customers on credit billing, who will be converted to prepaid meters too. So far, about 39,000 prepaid split meters have been installed in the area.
Mr Matebula said there was already a marked improvement in revenue collection, with recoveries in Soweto at about 40% in the past year and at 48% so far this year.
A prepaid split meter consists of a unit in customers’ houses on which they can load prepaid electricity that communicates with a tamper-proof meter outside the house that sends readings to the Eskom control centre.
There are various advantages to prepaid split meters, apart from improved revenue collection. They do not require meter readers to visit each household. Tampering is picked up immediately, and the penalty is disconnection and a fine of R6,000, which must be paid before the electricity is reconnected. In conjunction with other technology, prepaid split meters will help Eskom to eliminate illegal connections, which overload the system, and also claim several lives a week, mostly children, because of exposed live cables.
Eskom is conducting a communications campaign to persuade Soweto residents of the need for prepaid meters.
In September, households in Soweto owed Eskom R6bn. This has climbed to R7.5bn at present