City Power says unpaid electricity tariffs have had a direct impact on its ability to repair and improve infrastructure.
The utility will start the 2018/2019 financial year with an R1.2 billion deficit and it needs to collect about R3 billion in unpaid tariffs to regain stability.
City Power has cited an unpaid VAT refund from the South African Revenue Service (Sars) of over R314 million and a terminated contract with Eskom which accounts for over R267 million.
Over the past few weeks, several Johannesburg suburbs have been experiencing power outages due to ageing infrastructure.
City Power spokesperson Sol Masolo says: “Because we’ve not been able to get the kind of money we need over the years, so obviously we experience backlogs in terms of network and infrastructure development. As you are not able to get the money you need, at the same time your network ages.”
Source – EWN
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