Buffalo City Metro lost around R70m in electricity theft in a period of six months as a result of meter tampering and illegal connections.
This is according to BCM head of infrastructure Nceba Ncunyana, who presented a report to council last week.
As a result the metro is at risk of losing its electricity distribution licence, because this loss is far above the National Energy Regulator of SA’s (Nersa) standards. This was revealed by Ncunyana in an updated report tabled before the metro’s council last week, which looked at the metro’s electricity losses between July 1 and December 31 last year.
In the report Ncunyana said BCM had lost about R70m in collectable revenue for the six-month period through non-technical losses.
“This non-technical loss value can be attributed to the scourge of illegal electricity connections, database errors, metering theft or faults. The high escalation of non-technical losses can be attributed to the operations of a meter-tampering syndicate on business meters,” Ncunyana said in the report...