Municipality is ripping us off, complain consumers

Date: 03 October 2020 By: Anton van Zyl

Electricity bills sent out by the Makhado Municipality over the last couple of months have had consumers fuming. The August bills seemed to be highly inflated and not only because of tariff increases. What has now transpired is that the municipality’s meter readings were taken over lengthier periods, causing consumers to pay for consumption on incorrect tariff scales.

Several consumers contacted the newspaper over the past couple of weeks, complaining about their high electricity bills. One such consumer, Duncan Campbell, showed us his meticulous calculations, indicating exactly how and when consumers were overcharged. In his case, the irregular readings meant that he was overcharged by R555 over the past couple of months, which is quite excessive for a family of two.

Another consumer, Johann Hammann (Sr), wrote a letter to the municipality in which he demands that the municipality address the problem immediately. “This … resulted that the bill of 20 August 2020 for electricity consumption was grossly inflated, resulting that the KWH tariffs were wrongly calculated and at the wrong rates. If the corrections are made and the consumption is calculated over 2 months you will realize that I was overcharged with about R1 500.00,” he writes.

The problem lies in the different “blocks” of the sliding scale used by the municipality to calculate the electricity consumption. Block 1 is the cheapest (R1,0596) and is applicable to the first 50 KWH. Block 2 is for consumption between 51 and 350 KWH and costs R1,37 per unit. Consumption between 351 and 600 KWH costs R1,9372, while anything above 601 KWH will cost the consumer R2,3111 per unit.

If the municipality takes meter readings at regular intervals, the consumption will be fairly predictable, and most consumers will not move into the “expensive” blocks. If, however, the meter readings are taken over longer periods and no “averaging” is done, this will push consumers into usage blocks with higher tariffs.

Based on an analysis of a few consumer accounts, meter readings in certain parts of town were done on 31 January, 2 March, 21 April, 14 May, 4 June, and 5 August. In most cases this meant that consumers received a fairly moderate bill for July, but then it almost trebled in August.

A further effect of not taking meter readings in July, is that the specific month's consumption was charged at the increased tariffs, which came into effect in August.

“This is illegal and tantamount to fraud,” said Johann Hammann (Sr), who is also a practising attorney. He owns more than one property in Louis Trichardt, and he reckons he has been overcharged by several thousand rand over the past couple of months. In his letter to the municipality, he requests them to rectify the mistake immediately.

Hammann also reckons the current practice of the municipality may be in contravention of its licence to re-distribute electricity.

Questions were sent through to the Makhado Municipality’s spokesperson, Mr Louis Bobodi. At the time of our going to press, he still had to respond.

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Anton van Zyl

Anton van Zyl has been with the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror since 1990. He graduated from the Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg) and obtained a BA Communications degree. He is a founder member of the Association of Independent Publishers.

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