Tshwane residents rush to declare tampered meters

Hundreds of residents from Tshwane have come forward and declared their tampered meters after the City of Tshwane offered amnesty as part of its debt relief plan of action.

ANC Tshwane caucus spokesperson Joel Masilela said despite the DA Tshwane trying to steal their thunder, the initiative to clean up the city’s finances with their incentive and debt relief scheme was already showing some positive results.

Last week, the deputy mayor and MMC of Finance Eugene Modise announced an amnesty for meter tampering, when customers voluntarily report tampering with electricity meters and will then qualify for a tamper-fee waiver.

Amnesty for meter tampering

The city’s debt relief scheme will see R10 billion written off.

“In ward 15 in Mamelodi, I have seen hundreds of people come forward and express that they can no longer live the level of guilt, knowing they have been using electricity in the city illegally,” he said.

“Unfortunately, plenty of those live in informal settlements and were not calling on us to connect them to the grid legally again so they can make their contributions. On the first day, we received over 700 queries, then 500 the next day and so it goes on.”

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“In my ward, the number of applications will likely reach more than 3 000 people.”

Masilela said the initiative has been widely welcomed. He said despite DA councillor Jacqui Uys’ attempts to undermine the initiative by approaching the public protector to open a case against the deputy mayor, they “will continue to carry out many initiatives to provide struggling communities with financial relief to normalise their municipal accounts”.

Masilela said the city can expect a clean auditor opinion with no adverse findings under the ANC coalition government.

DA councillor opened a case to investigate company tied to deputy mayor

Last Tuesday, Uys opened a case with the public protector to launch an investigation into the tax delinquent Triotic Protection Services, a company with ties to the deputy mayor.

Tshwane DA leader Cilliers Brink said the party would ask mayor Nasiphi Moya whether the performance of Triotic has been reviewed and whether there have been any contractual penalties levied against them.

“It is evident that they are failing in their duties, so no reasonable person can be expected to believe that there shouldn’t be penalties levied against them,” Brink said.

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