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Residents of Diepkloof in Soweto queue in long lines for assistance with recoding of the prepaid electricity meters on 25 November 2024.
Johannesburg’s City Power has joined Eskom in extending the deadline for their customers to recode their pre-paid electricity meters. City Power has given its customers up until the 30th of November to get their meters upgraded.
Eskom has given its non-paying customers until Friday to get their houses in order.
City Power says its teams will be on the ground assisting customers with replacing and installing new meters. The Johannesburg electricity distribution company says it has already pre-generated key change tokens for non-buying customers.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena explains: “By this afternoon all vending pre-paid customers had their meters recoded ahead of the deadline. We have seen an influx of previously non-vending customers to our service delivery centers, especially in Lenasia and Alexandra, seeking assistance ahead of tonight’s deadline. We have already pre-generated key change tokens for the outstanding non-vending customers as City Power.”
Mangena says this will enable the power utility to assist in converting prepaid meters beyond tonight’s deadline.
“This will basically make sure that it enables customers to assist in converting prepaid meters even after tonight’s deadline.”
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Meanwhile, in Soweto, long queues continued at various Eskom centres. In Zola, systems experienced a technical glitch.
“I’ve spent 10 minutes, but everything is okay inside. They are trying to help us. The problem is the system. The system is offline, but they are trying to do it manually so that everything would be fast. They said they will call me tomorrow,” says Thembinkosi Masinga a customer who was caught up in the process.
Eskom says it will continue to service the customers.
“We are going to be dealing with those customers whose meters have been bypassed, those customers who say their meters have been broken, or they have lost their meters, or their meters are not operating anymore. So those are the customers we will be attending to,” says Gauteng Eskom spokesperson, Amanda Qithi.
The recoding process continues.
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