By: Prudence Nhavingo
As the City of Tshwane has disconnected electricity for some of the residence in Pretoria Central due to not paying their electricity bills, some of the residence reconnected their electricity illegally and were arrested for tampering with municipal infrastructure and theft of electricity.
The City of Tshwane has recently made such arrest not so long ago as they opened a criminal case against a Centurion shopping centre in March 2024, two Garsfontein homeowners and a former Tshwane contractor in April 2024 were also arrested for the theft of electricity and tampering with municipal infrastructure.
With seeing that residence reconnect their electricity illegal after the disconnection by the City of Tshwane a new rule has been implemented which is to arrest and charge residence who tampers with the municipal infrastructure and who steal the electricity when found.
The campaign Tshwane Ya Tima will continue going out there looking out and disconnecting for residents, businesses and government institutions that do not pay their electricity and water bills and it is focusing on auditing electricity and the finding bridged water meters. This campaign has audited 1 174 meters in May 2024 and 172 of them were found to have been bridged as result a fine of about R 4,7 million was issued.
The result of not paying for water and electricity has putted the City of Tshwane into a financially challenging position, therefore the matter must be fixed by forcing residence to pay their bills by disconnecting their electricity and cutting off their water connection.
“I want to thank all the residents who pay their bills on time and encourage those who still owe the municipal to make payment arrangements or apply to the Affordable Committee to get some of their past debt written off and start over on a clean record,” said MMC Jacqui Uys.
