Africa-Press – South-Africa. City Power was forced to abandon its blitz to cut off electricity connections due to unpaid bills in Lenasia, where it is owed more than R1.2 billion by customers.
On Friday, three technicians were held hostage soon after the team disconnected Lens Station Shopping Complex, which has an outstanding bill of more than R3 million, said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.
He said a group of people arrived shouting insults and threats of violence before they held the technicians hostage, but eventually let them go.
Mangena said the Johannesburg Metro Police Department advised City Power to abandon proceeding with the operation because it was increasingly clear the safety of the technicians could not be guaranteed.
While the violence and threats shook the City Power team, Mangena said the disconnection drive would continue in Lenasia as more police escorts would be deployed.
“These drives have been necessitated by the culture of non-payment by some customers in the Lenasia area, which has resulted in the SDC collecting low revenues in comparison to the population,” Mangena said.
Mangena said Lenasia was one of the communities plagued by vandalism and theft, resulting in high costs of repairs and material replacement for City Power.
“While we appreciate some strides made towards the protection of our infrastructure by the community, the high rate of non-payment of services is also crippling our resources,” Mangena said.
Mangena said the number of businesses in the community, which are either illegally connected to their network, defaulted on their payments or have bypassed meters, was worrying.
He urged communities and businesses to pay for electricity, advising them to update their accounts and make payment arrangements if they were in arrears.
“The cut-off drives remain our last resort as we would rather foster a mutually beneficial relationship of quality service provision to the residents made possible by the payment of services,” said Mangena.
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