Sign a petition against smart meters

Ward 85 Councillor Carl Mann is calling all residents to sign the petition against the installation of City Power’s smart meters.

Mann insisted that it was of paramount importance for residents to sign the petition.

He complained that there were so many issues involved in the new smart meters.

According to him, the smart meters were allegedly not SABS approved.

“You cannot even find the details of the company which is installing those smart meters. City Power cannot even give us those details,” explained Mann.

He further explained that sometimes when the smart meter is installed, they do not collaborate with the satellite connection because of poor signal.

Contractors then allegedly inform residents that they would get back to fix the connection problem so the smart meter can collaborate accurately.

“Instead of recording the right household electricity consumption, residents end up being charged double the amount they used to pay,” the councillor explained.

City Power maintained that they were not charging the customers for the installation of smart meters. “Smart meters are available to customers free of charge,” explained the entity’s spokesperson Yumna Sheik.

She further explained that if residents used to be estimated due to either a faulty meter that was installed or due to issues City of Joburg might have had with the manual readings were now correctly billed as per accurate usage as an accurate SABS approved meter had been installed.

According to Sheik all the smart meters are SABS approved as per international regulated approval standards.

“City Power has all the necessary approval certificates. A total of 92 884 meters have been installed. Residents are not charged for installations of a smart meter, however there is a charge when converting from post-paid to prepaid,” she further explained.

City Power has an agreement with an external accredited meter test lab that can conduct meter accuracy verification test and they can be contact on

087 022 0540 for any smart meter query.

“If customers have issues with their bills, the correct path to address it is not by signing a petition against a measurement device, rather engaging City of Johannesburg who in conjunction with City Power will gladly assist addressing the real issue at hand,” she concluded.

To sign the petition, residents can log on to this link: https://goo.gl/forms/vQE43MD5Qo and fill in their details.

Details: Ward 85 Councillor Carl Mann carl@ward85jhb.co.za ; City Power 011 490 7607.

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