One day to go for all prepaid meters to be recoded

There’s frustration among Eskom customers as hundreds of them continue to queue outside the power utility’s offices across Johannesburg to have their prepaid electricity meters recoded.

There’s a long queue in Chiawelo, Soweto, with some elderly standing in the scorching sun.

Tomorrow is the deadline for the recoding of the meters.

Residents say Eskom had promised to increase capacity to help speed up the process, but this does not seem to be the case.

Gauteng Crime Wardens have been deployed to assist with controlling the queue.

Meanwhile, Eskom has encouraged South Africans to upgrade the meters themselves using their mobile phones.

IN PICTURES | People standing in a queue for updating meters in Soweto.

Meanwhile, the Polokwane Municipality in Limpopo says it has recoded about 98% of pre-paid electricity meters. Municipal spokesperson Thipa Selala says about 2500 pre-paid meter users have not been buying electricity.

“We have made significant progress in the TID rollover project with 98% of all active electricity meters successfully inspected and updated to the TID compliance system. This ensures that the vast majority of our customers will continue to load and use tokens without any disruption beyond the 24 of November 2024 deadline.

However, we have encountered challenges in locating approximately 2500 electricity meters during the inspection process. These meters have not been buying electricity tokens and remain unresponsive to the roll over process.” – Additional reporting by Jostina Masedi.

BELOW: Prepaid Meters | Sowetans continue to queue for upgrades