Debt, illegal connections sees Tshwane cut power to luxury estate

Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo says several houses on the estate have been disconnected due to outstanding utility bills.

The disconnections is part of the city's campaign to recover debt from unpaid electricity bills and illegal connections.

Mashigo says that some residents have also bypassed their water and electricity meters.

"We have some of our customers, its not the estate itself but individual customers collectively they owe the city R16,4 million.

"We have non-payers in that estate, we also have infrequent payers, meaning people who pay now and then not honouring payments on a monthly basis. Some of them do not pay at all, so we went there to disconnect the illegal connections to our water meters as well as to our electricity infrastructure as well as targeting those who are illegally connected but are not paying the municipality.”

At the same time the estate has denied the allegations, saying it does not owe the municipality any money.

"Copperleaf as an estate and as an association does not even owe a single cent to the municipality,” says general manager Phineas Thosago.

"We pay for the club house, we pay for the golf course, we pay for the wastewater. We then have all our accounts of Copperleaf are in good condition and we are actually the first ones to install the new smart meters, so we are prepaid.

"In actual fact we have monies in out accounts father than owing because by February as an estate we had already started converting to Tshwane smart meters.”

Thosago says 98 homes were disconnected due to outstanding payments, but none were disconnected for illegal connections.

"At the estate we have 1187 stands and most of those that were disconnected were either vacant lands or owing the rates, or houses that are still under construction. Throughout the operation no house was found to be connected illegally."

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