Two million Eskom prepaid meter users face power cut-off as recoding deadline looms

At an Eskom pop-up office in Protea, Soweto on Wednesday, 20 November 2024, women in long queues worried about the babies strapped on their backs in the heat. Old men smoked and complained about Eskom while waiting under the scorching sun. Some elderly residents sent relatives to queue for them from as early as 2am.

They were all visiting the office with one concern – to find out how to update their prepaid Eskom meters to avoid having their power cut off and paying a potential R12,000 to replace their meters.

On 24 November 2024, Eskom will cut power to prepaid meters that haven’t been recoded, a process it says is important to prevent criminality, including accessing electricity through bypassing meters and the sale of tokens from criminal syndicates.

Kelebogile Khushumane told Daily Maverick on Wednesday morning that she became aware that she needed to update her meter only a week ago. The Protea resident said it was her third visit to the Eskom pop-up office.

“I was here on Monday, but the queue was cut off before I could make it inside. I came back again yesterday, but I did not get any assistance. Today, I managed to go in and they explained that I must go and buy electricity.

“Now I am waiting to go back inside so that they enter my details in the system and update for me as I will not know what to do when I’m alone at home,” she said.

Graphic by Bogosi Monnakgotla

 

Eskom list of support contacts for residents who experience trouble trying to recode and update their meters

Waiting to be updated – 2.2 million meters

Eskom has explained that customers can recode their meters at home. They need to buy their prepaid electricity from an authorised vendor, which will come with two 20-digit codes, and upon being entered, the meter will automatically update.

Eskom has 6.9 million prepaid meter customers and 97% of those meters can be updated at home by users. But 2.1 million meters still have not been updated.

On Wednesday, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said all prepaid meters had to be updated by Sunday.

“This is the 2.1 million people who from Monday [25 November] will not have access to electricity. This is the 2.1 million people who are going to bear the cost of the replacement of the prepaid meters. This is the 2.1 million people who must wait for the meter to be available to be installed in order to access this electricity,” said Ramokgopa at a briefing.

Eskom has reiterated that people did not need to turn up at its offices. The power utility said people should visit their offices only if they had not been able to recode their meters after buying electricity from a registered vendor.

“Meters still using KRN1 (Key Revision Number 1) will no longer accept electricity tokens after Sunday, 24 November 2024. This means that once your current credit is depleted, you will lose power, and the meter will become inoperable, necessitating a meter replacement that could cost up to R12,000, which the customer will have to pay,” said Eskom in a statement this week.

“Customers with meters still on KRN1 have likely not purchased electricity for more than six months or might be using unauthorised tokens bought from criminal syndicates.”

Confusion and panic

In the Eskom pop-up office in Protea on Wednesday, many people were shocked that they did not all have to visit the office to upgrade their meters.

Most of those in the queue said they didn’t think Eskom could conclude the process by Sunday and that it had to give them an extension.

“This is entirely Eskom’s fault. I only learnt about the migration of the prepaid meters through a Facebook post last week Sunday. When I interrogated the post, I discovered that it was true,” said 27-year-old Soweto resident Anele Ndlovu.

Eskom said it had sent SMSes to customers notifying them of how to recode their meters. The power utility has emphasised that it will not extend the recoding deadline.

An elderly man in the queue, who did not provide his name, told Daily Maverick a woman had given him two litres of traditional brew to queue for her and would get two more litres when she was finished. She hadn’t made it into the offices during Daily Maverick’s visit. He joined the queue at around 4am on Wednesday.

“It’s not working,” he said.

Pensioner Mary Masemola, who is 85 years old, said, “This is not two days’ work. They should have given us six months. Their communication has been very bad. We did not know. I only became aware this week.”

When made aware that the programme began last year, Masemola expressed shock.

“They should have made sure that the information reaches everyone. They will not finish all these people before Sunday. They didn’t communicate properly, and when they did, they threaten us to say if you do not do it by a certain date they will close [the meters]. What are they closing, what is happening?” the elderly woman asked. DM