Joined by City Power Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tshifularo Mashava, Amad led a cut-off operation in Roodepoort today as part of efforts to recover some R7.9 billion owed to the metro by residents and businesses.
Amad said the city needs to improve its finances urgently because it is in need of revenue.
“The entire City is owed about R7.9 billion. You know the City is in a dire need of those finances, we are trying to make sure that we generate revenue so that we stabilise the finances of the City.
“Remember these are business institutions, when there is no electricity it is going to affect their customers , it’s going to put pressure on their businesses so they are obliged to pay.”
The City of Joburg has so far collected over R3 billion after starting the cut-off operation in November.
City Power Group Executive Operations Manager Isaac Rampedi said since the announcement that they were going to visit Roodepoort some businesses have already paid about R5.4 million.
He said those who were cut-off today will be monitored weekly in case they reconnect back to the grid.
“We need to monitor them weekly, we told the business owner that should we find them by-passing the metre box, we will implement level 3 where we take the whole cable,” he said.
The City Power cut-off will soon visit Region C which is Roodepoort north, Randburg, Olivedale, Northriding just to mention a few.
City of Johannesburg council has previously revealed that the Metro only has about R600 million in its books prompting the approval of a R2 billion loan which was rejected twice last year under the leadership of recently removed Mayor Mpho Phalatse.
