Court orders Tshwane to stop cutting RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo’s power

The Pretoria high court on Tuesday ordered Tshwane metro to stop cutting power supply to Road Accident Fund (RAF) CEO Collins Letsoalo’s home over a disputed R800,000 electricity bill.

Letsoalo has been fighting the metro in court since March 2015, in what he says is a billing system error.

Letsoalo falls in a long line of aggrieved residents in the capital city contesting rocketing bills.

Tshwane residents have often hit out at the metro’s billing system, which they say is flawed.

In 2021, the public protector found that the municipality billed some consumers, businesses and residents irregularly for water and electricity based only on estimated consumption. It failed to  take meter readings regularly — a fault the metro attributed to “budgetary constraints”.

The public protector found the metro in some cases estimated meter readings beyond a period of three months — which was illegal.

In Letsoalo’s case he argued he had not received statements from the municipality for seven years. After buying a property on an estate in the east of Pretoria in 2007, he contended he only received a bill from the metro for the first time in 2013.

“I resided on the property for seven years before the [metro] could send me any statements of account for my electricity usage. As a result, I would make regular monthly payments ranging between R3,000 and R4,000 from my own estimates,” he said.

“In June 2013, the metro started sending various notices indicating its intention to terminate my electricity supply owing to the arrears of different amounts allegedly owed by me.”

Letsoalo, however, argued the account number reflecting on the statement was not his, adding that it belonged to someone in Cape Town.

When he raised this with a lawyer representing the municipality handling the dispute, he indicated that his correct account number “reflected a positive balance in excess of R100,000 and that it was inactive”.

After sending a notice to Letsoalo in April 2016, the metro cut off his electricity supply. In the same month, the high court ordered the metro to restore electricity supply to Letsoalo’s house and said the parties should resolve the bill dispute within 30 days.

The matter was not resolved and in October 2024 the municipality again cut off Letsoalo’s power. The bill, it said, had increased to R887,811.

The court in November 2024 issued an order prohibiting the municipality from cutting power until April 22.

The case was back in the high court on Tuesday before judge Nomsa Khumalo.

Khumalo ruled in favour of Letsoalo and ordered the metro to pay his legal fees, which were previously reserved in November 2024.

The court gave the metro 30 days to participate in the resolution. 

sinesiphos@businesslive.co.za