ActionSA vows to challenge City Power’s R200 monthly service fee

ActionSA in Joburg says it will challenge City Power’s R200 monthly service fee that it has imposed on prepaid electrify users.

The fee, which was passed by council in May, kicked in on Monday and affects about 250,000 prepaid users in the city. The R200 is automatically deducted when the user buys electricity.  

City Power said it was doing this to share the costs of maintaining stolen and damaged infrastructure with the customers.

Customers told Sowetan how unfair it was to be punished by City Power for a crime they did not commit.  

ActionSA now said it would fight the adoption of the service fee.

ActionSA caucus leader in the City of Joburg, Nobuhle Mthembu said: “ActionSA maintains our objection to the unjustified service charges, particularly because we acknowledge the plight of residents, especially those languishing in poverty or just about managing to make ends meet, who simply cannot bear the extra burden imposed by the governing chaos coalition.” 

The ANC, EFF, PA, Al-Jamah-ah, AIC, AHC, APC, ATM, Cope and Good supported the service charge which led to its adoption.  ActionSA, IFP,VF, ACDC,UIM and DA were outvoted.  

Mthembu said ActionSA will return to the next council sitting with the aim of rescinding this decision and sending City Power back to the drawing board to explore other available means to collect its revenue. 

“ActionSA urges the residents of the City of Johannesburg to continue voicing their concerns and ensuring their objections are heard by signing our petition before the next Council sitting, said Mthembu. 

“We will be using a petition to try and get as many signatures as possible from the residents and to submit that to the Environment and Infrastructure Services Department MMC. The reason why we’re taking this step is that we’ve noticed that a lot of our residents miss the city’s public participation engagements.

“We are  hoping that the executive mayor together with his executive can motivate their voting block to rescind the council decision and see the plight of the residents with the current tough economy challenges and seek other possible avenues of collecting revenue,” Mthembu said.