City Power has made a call to all financially disadvantaged and qualifying households across Johannesburg to register for the Free Basic Electricity (FBE) programme.

The City of Johannesburg’s power utility stated that this is an important initiative aimed at providing eligible customers with free electricity units each month, as part of its broader strategy to ensure inclusive access to electricity and improve customer compliance.

According to the city, this is also aimed at addressing electricity theft and equipment damage resulting from the overloading of the network through illegal connections and tampering.

The registration drive is scheduled to run from June 17 until July 31, with a target of registering 130,000 indigent customers.

City Power’s Isaac Mangena said: “Once registered, eligible residents will receive 50kWh of electricity per month at no cost, allowing them to power essential household needs such as lighting, cooking, and heating.”

According to the utility’s 2024 data, 94.1% of the city’s residents were connected to the grid in 2022.

Mangena said customers can register at community-based pop-up registration stations, malls, taxi ranks, churches, SASSA pay points and through City Power’s door-to-door campaigns and Imbizos.

Mayibuye resident Vuyolethu Cokotho, 25, expressed excitement, hopeful that the initiative would help many people.

“I hope the registration goes smoothly and we get electricity. It is very difficult to survive without electricity because you have to go around asking people to charge your phone for you, asking them to keep your meat in their fridge, and sometimes they don’t have meat themselves,” Cokotho told IOL.

IOL previously reported on cases of electrocution as residents tried to get themselves connected to the power grid illegally.

Speaking exclusively to IOL News, energy expert Chris Yellend said: “It is a noble ambition. However, it is not going to be achieved this year or next year, mainly because the city is grappling with mismanagement and quick urbanisation, even though high-density areas like Joburg are more affordable and quicker to electrify than low-density rural areas.”

“Plans are made every year, and a lot of them don’t come to fruition. This could well be one of them,” remarked Yellend.

Yellend highlighted the challenges the city is grappling with, highlighting the lack of financial resources:

“The rampant load shedding and illegal connections have added to the city’s revenue loss, which then begs the source of funding. People who can afford it have moved to alternative sources like solar and moved off the grid, hence the city introduced the R200 fee for smaller customers on prepaid meters.”

Yellend further said: “80% of residents in all of the city’s townships don’t pay for electricity and the majority are subjected to poverty, so this means the city will essentially provide free electricity to almost everyone, the challenge for the residents is that they have to register on the indigent register every six months, that has put a lot of people off, many are not on the register.”

IOL NEWS

Source link