City Power has again cracked down on defaulting, non-paying and illegally connected business customers in the inner city by disconnecting the power supply to more than 10 businesses on Friday. 

The operation was carried out by the City Power Inner City Service Delivery Centre (SDC) with the support of police and JMPD. Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said Friday operation was to recoup over R33 million owed by 16 business customers that had been identified in Fordsburg, Newtown and Ferreirasdorp areas. "Six of those business accounts were subsequently removed from the list as they had pending billing queries on them. As a result, our team audited some nearby businesses in the area that were not on the initial list, and some were found to be in arrears," Mangena said, adding that the SDC is owed a staggering amount of R2.5 billion by both business and residential defaulting customers within the inner city. He added that City Power revenue protection team started the operation at Fordsburg, Johannesburg where they disconnected a business that was illegally connecting themselves to our electricity network.

According to the Joburg City's power supplier, another building which was a combination of a business and a residential building in Fordsburg was found to have an unregistered 3-phase meter which was then disconnected by our cut-off team. "In May Street, in Fordsburg, one business customer owed the utility around R2.6 million with a suspected two points of power supply, " said Mangena. Mangena said officials advised the customer to approach the inner-city walk-in centre to make a payment arrangement after they disconnected them. He further said since the start of their intensified revenue collection drives, they are seeing results. "Defaulting customers approach the Inner-City walk-in centres once they've been cut off as they realise that they need power supply to operate their businesses. As a result, R1.4 million has already been collected through penalties alone during these operations, " he said.