Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia- 2016/06/07

City Power says it’s intensifying efforts to eradicate fraud and corruption as it gears itself up for a new era which will include the strengthening of its corruption-busting initiatives.

The power utility’s risk control department, together with the police, the judiciary and companies such as Eskom, Transnet and Telkom, have joined forces to ensure that perpetrators are arrested, charged and sent to jail.

Spokesperson Yumna Sheikh says they have picked up trends in terms of fraudulent activities from both residential and certain businesses that are classified under ‘large power uses’.

“There have been a number of campaigns we have been running, the latest being the clamp down on those who are circumventing electricity.”

Sheikh says in the business environment a number of ‘large power uses’ that City Power found guilty are mainly related to bribing officials to either take incorrect meter readings.

“We have around 851 cases that have been registered with the South African Police Service and around 782 arrests that have been made which all range from small businesses, informal businesses all the way to your larger established companies.”

In the 2015/16 financial year City Power lost at least a billion rand due to non-technical losses which includes the bypassing and tampering of meters.

Twitter: @thedabhelia

(Edited By Faizel Patel)