In bid to get customers to pay, Tshwane to reduce estimations for water, electricity use

JOHANNESBURG - In a bid to get customers to pay their bills, the Tshwane municipality said it would be reducing the use of estimations for water and electricity use.

The cash-strapped municipality is owed R24 billion by non-paying customers. About 73% of the monies owed to the capital is from households.

At a media briefing on Tuesday, Tshwane Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya said that part of the reason residents were not paying was because they were being billed incorrectly.

"As this administration, we said we need to reduce estimations. We must actually invest on actual meter readings because most of the residents have withdrawn because they are saying 'you are not billing me on what I have used' and that’s something we are correcting and we will announce soon what exactly we mean by that."

About 23% of the R24 billion owed to the city is from businesses.

Moya said the municipality did have credit control policies to go after them.

"But I think to close down business, it will have to be part of the policy, because sometimes there’s a situation where we say 'let’s attach the property so you can pay us the money you owe us' but all of that must be within the policies that are approved by council."