A Revenue Crackdown: Johannesburg’s Shift from Prepaid to Pay-Later

In a significant move to clamp down on revenue losses, City Power has begun a sweeping conversion of thousands of residential prepaid electricity customers to conventional postpaid accounts. The target: over 2,318 customers identified as “non-vending”meaning they have not been purchasing electricity via their prepaid meters for an extended period.

According to spokesperson Isaac Mangena, this intervention is a direct effort to recover lost income and address rampant issues of meter tampering, bypassing, and illegal connections. The core problem with the current prepaid system, Mangena explains, is that it prevents the utility from backdating charges when theft is discovered. “Currently on prepaid, City Power is not able to backdate, which allows customers to get away with bypassing and also non-payment.”

How the Conversion Changes the Game

Once moved to a postpaid system, these customers will receive a monthly bill reflecting their actual consumption, based on meter readings. This shift unlocks a powerful tool for City Power: the ability to apply credit recovery measures. Crucially, the utility can now backdate charges for up to 36 months in accordance with municipal bylaws, potentially billing customers for thousands of rands in previously unmetered usage.

The new bills will also include standard postpaid feesa monthly service charge and a network capacity charge totaling approximately R900adding a significant fixed cost to what may have been a negligible or non-existent electricity bill.

A Broader Audit and a Stern Warning

This conversion is part of a broader city-wide campaign. City Power teams are conducting door-to-door meter audits to identify more non-vending or bridged meters. The message to affected customers is stern: settle your accounts promptly to avoid disconnection. After all due processes, non-payment could also lead to blacklisting.

For the identified customers, the era of invisible consumption is over. The move signals City Power’s tougher stance on recovering revenue in a city where electricity theft and billing inaccuracies have long crippled the utility’s finances. It’s a clear warning that the prepaid meter, often seen as a tool for customer control, can also be a shield for non-payment ,a shield the utility is now actively removing.