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An Eskom prepaid electricity meter box and card.
Eskom will continue to service non-paying prepaid customers and those who have tampered with their meters on Monday.
The power utility has extended the deadline for zero buyers to upgrade their prepaid electricity meters.
On Sunday, scores of people rushed to Eskom offices to try to beat the meter recoding deadline.
There was a vast improvement in the efficiencies of Eskom workers on Sunday. Throughout last week, citizens witnessed snaking queues, but the power utility has managed to speed up the process to reduce the waiting time.
Eskom Spokesperson, Amanda Qithi says they are happy with the progress.
“We have done our very best to try and service our customers the best way we can. As we have been saying for the past few months that this is something people can do without even coming to our offices. It’s a matter of buying electricity, get the key token and recode the meter. But unfortunately, we found ourselves in this situation. But I’m happy that as it stands now, we do not have any customers that are queuing,” says Qithi.
Security in and around the vicinity of the Eskom offices was beefed up with Joburg Metro Police and Gauteng Crime wardens on patrol.
This after reports about some criminal syndicates allegedly selling electricity tokens to queuing customers outside Eskom offices.
There were also allegation of people claiming to be Eskom employees offering to re-configure meters for customers at a fee. However Qithi was unaware of this.
She says from Monday, the focus will shift to helping the so-called zero buyers.
These are customers, who have either tampered with their metres have not been purchasing electricity for the last six months and beyond or have been buying from illegal or unscrupulous vendors.
Some residents were not excited about the meter registration process.
“What did Ramokgopa say during the week? He said, Sunday that’s it. Those who will come after that, it would be R12 000 to change the metres. These people think we are stupid,” says one of the customers.
“When its election time, they do door to door. But now they are subjecting us to this heat,” says another customer.
“The minister was here but did nothing. Are they waiting for someone to faint and die first,” says another customer.
Eskom has urged customers to stay away from people selling electricity tokens, illegally.
She says re-coding is free and people should not pay for it.
Some Eskom customers in and around Polokwane in Limpopo say the power utility has penalised them as non-buying customers, despite buying electricity on a regular basis.
Scores had queued at the Eskom offices in Polokwane to recode the electricity meter boxes.
People who haven’t recoded their electricity meter boxes will not be able to reload electricity coupons on their meters after the closing date tonight.
Several non-paying users have been fined over R6000 while others say they were ordered to go back on Monday.
“When we came here in the morning, the security people told us that the office does not open on Sunday and the offices are closed. We came knowing that today is a closing date, but we were stranded because no one was helping us. We had to involve the media. We have been standing in the queue and as soon as we reached the entrance they told us we should come on Monday,” says one of the customers.
Power utility’s Ruth Boy Eskom has refuted the claims that only the non buying customers are being penalised.
“Our operating hours are from 07:30 until 4 o’clock, but since this project, we have been working until after 4. We were knocking off at 9, so that we can be able to assist our customers. So, we have worked after two on Saturday. Customers who have not been buying electricity know that. We are not charging those who were paying. We are charging those who were not paying. We need to recover what we have lost,” says Boy.
