Duane Petrus – The electricity supplier in the Eastern Free State will try to reduce the number of non-paying users in a bid to assist Eskom with the current nation-wide load shedding.
Rural maintenance, which supplies electricity to the Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality, says about 40% of the users have accounts in arrears.
The CEO, Chris Bosch, says they will install prepaid meters in households where they find users do not pay their monthly bills.
He says users who refuse to have these meters installed will their electricity disconnected
He further added that users who do not pay for electricity often waste it, and they will therefore learn to use it more sparingly once they are forced to pay for the electricity they use.
“If only electricity users who are paying for it are connected, then obviously the load on the network would be much less. If the loading on the network is decreased, then there would not be such a big for Eskom to introduce load shedding,” Bosch says.
Harrismith will be affected by loadshedding from 14:00 to 16:30 and Kestell from 16:00 to 18:30. Details for Phuthaditjhaba are not available on Eskom’s website.
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