The Bulletin Newspaper - 25 October 2019

Page 1

ISSUE 246 - FREE

25

OCTOBER 2019

COMMUNITY NEWS. ORIGINAL - ACCURATE - FIRST

017 631 1903 / 017 631 1845 • admin@thebulletin.co.za • 1 Kiewiet Street, Secunda (Lake Umuzi)

Smart Meter Confusion

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mart Meters are becoming a bigger and bigger problem for Govan Mbeki Municipality (GMM). Smart Meters (SM) are designed to curb meter tampering and fraud. SMs are also a smart way of controlling your expenditure. It provides a platform for self-management regarding energy usage at home. GMM received various proposals regarding the supply of electricity and the billing thereof. Council refused to approve several of these proposals. One proposal was approved for the eMbalenhle target but the eMbalenhle residents refused the meters and chased the installations teams out of Emba. The next plan was to use those meters in Secunda instead of eMbalenhle. This was also met with stiff reluctance but GMM pushed ahead regardless. Several meters were installed. The installations started with the replacement of prepaid meters before embarking on the next stage of replacing meters for normal users. Several different meters were used namely; Taurus, Actaris, Medupi Powercom and the last ones were Vodacom meters. The Vodacom meters had sim cards installed. The council was assured that the sim card costs would be carried by the supplier. Opposition parties opposed the proposal on the grounds that the sim card costs would have to be recovered from somewhere and that would have to be the consumer. “It was not clear how the costs would be recovered,” said DA Cllr Mariaan Chamberlain. “The proposal was vague and incomplete, but the ANC used their majority to push it through.” Residents are expected to pay for their smart meters, but it stays the property of GMM. Once the Vodacom meters were installed the following

problems surfaced; 241 were offline, 854 had no accounts allocated and 1494 were not billed. Macrocom was approached by GMM and contracted to work hand in hand with GMM energy section to rectify the process. Of the 241 offline meters 126 were rectified and are now ready for billing. 397 of the 854 meters with no accounts are now ready to be billed and 959 of the 1494 that were not billed are now billed. GMM has a shortage of meters that hampers the rectification process. The unfinished Medupi Powercom project causes voltage dips that lasts up to 5 seconds. This, together with low and even zero purchases from residents causes problems with the expected revenue income for GMM. Internal Teams as well as residents have now resorted to doing straight connections as the smart meter shortages continue. This further impacts the revenue losses of GMM. Some residents have complained that they have already paid their meters in full but have been waiting for three years for the installation. On 23 October it would be exactly three years that people have complained to The Bulletin and are still waiting for their meters. “It is fraud to billed for items that are not delivered. Poor financial management by GMM, political interference and poor supply chain management are at the root of these problems.” “The smart meter projects have been plagued with problems since its inception,” continued Mariaan, “it would appear that these Smart Meter projects were pushed beyond proper reasoning, begging the question of: were there personal interests in these projects?” The Smart Meters will continue to be a thorn that has to be dealt with by GMM. At the time of going to press, no answer was received from GMM.


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