City Power’s Blatant Violation of The Consumer Protection Act

Johannesburg - Smart meters. Nobody in Joburg wants them. This is evident from the fact that the City felt the need to issue a letter containing threats of being charged with an offense for not allowing installers access to properties. The tender deals have been mired in corruption, uncalibrated meters that are not SABS approved, and billing chaos - and yet, City power are forcing these things down people’s throats, while lying through their teeth, every step of the way. 

Violation of the Consumer Protection Act

The Consumer Protection Act, No 68 of 2008, states under chapter 4 - The right to Disclosure of Information:

“Right to product labelling and trade description

1. Suppliers and service providers are required to display labelling and trade descriptions of products that do not mislead consumers about the contents of the packaging or goods attached to the products.”

I hate to break it (not really!) to the traitors at City Power, but your Stalin meters, are “goods attached to the product” - the product being the electricity we are forced to buy from City Power alone. 

What City Power is not disclosing

Smart meters are not “just new meters”

1. Smart meters are rationing tools

These devices are capable of shutting off your power remotely, not because you didn’t pay, but because the City has decided that you are using “too much”. In fact, they are not just capable of doing this, but it is in fact the primary reason for their development in the first place. Does City Power disclose that this meter is a rationing device? No. Does the contract we have with City power state that we will be subject to individual rationing? No.

2. Violation of privacy - These meters spy on you

In order to enforce the above mentioned rationing system, these meters have to spy on your usage - what you are using your electricity for, and how much. 

After making the the two fact above known to my residents association, members asked our ward councillor about this, and the response she got from City power, was that:

“City Power can monitor usage currently. The purpose is not to curb useage, because this can be done through load shedding anyway. 

Also it does not make sense to curb usage as it is revenue generating.”

Everything in that statement is false, twisted and deliberately deceptive.

Monitoring vs Measuring

There is a difference between “measuring”, and “monitoring”. The City can NOT currently monitor your usage. They can measure it. Which is totally fine. They are supposed to do that. “Monitoring”, is something completely different. Monitoring, is real-time tracking of what you are doing with electricity in your house, down to what specific appliances you are using, and allowing or disallowing it based on totally arbitrary regulations. Does City Power disclose to their customers that this meter can spy on what you do in your home? No.  

Limiting/rationing of usage

On to part two of their lie..

“The purpose is not to curb usage, because this can be done through load shedding anyway” 

“Because”? What clap trap! Load shedding applies to entire sections/wards. Not to individuals. And not because of a personal usage ration being exceeded. 

Next lie..

“Also it does not make sense to curb usage as it is revenue generating.”

Twice in one statement, they deny that this is  about curbing/controlling individual usage. There is just one problem with that, and that is that it is a provable LIE. 

In 2015, an article appeared in multiple newspapers, titled “City will decide how much electricity you can use in your home”, which made it clear that rationing is indeed the City’s plan:

“The City of Johannesburg has introduced a ‘load limiting’ system‚ which will reduce the amount of power supplied to the household‚ thus reducing demand and probably averting load-shedding.

The load limiting‚ which is only applicable on smart meters‚ allows the city to send an sms to the ratepayer‚ alerting him or her to reduce demand before power is reduced.

If the ratepayer starts reducing demand before the actual load limiting time‚ they will not experience any power interruption.

When the load limiting is implemented‚ power supplied to the house will be reduced.

If the household has not reduced the load‚ they electricity will go off for 30 seconds and come back. This will give the household to switch off some appliances. If the person in the house does not switch off anything‚ there will be another power outage for 30 seconds and come back.

If there is still no load reduction‚ then there will be an outage.”

There is also evidence from the same year that they indeed used these smart meters to do exactly what they now say they won’t do. A letter from a reader was published in The Star, titled “Why is City Power punishing me?”

“The temperature in my garden on Saturday morning was -7ºC.

I was deprived of power to run my heater and geyser the night before.”

“I have a smart meter which was installed more than a year ago. The contractor arrived without an appointment and bullied his way onto the property to install the meter. No instructions were given to us when he left. A while later, another City Power official arrived to install a remote read-out. He did not say anything other than when he left. He had removed the batteries from the unit and told me to use other batteries. At no time did City Power ever communicate with me concerning the use of the smart meter or load limiting.”

Lie after lie after lie. Not only is it not true that the purpose “is not to curb usage”, but it is evident that these meters are already used to do exactly that! 

3. Health problems/concerns

There are multiple health concerns related to smart meters. These devices emit RF radiation. This is totally undisclosed by City Power. These meters are communicating data about your usage to cell towers, and to other meters. When there is no clear line of sight to a tower, the data is transmitted to the next meter, until one is found with direct communication to a cell tower. Depending on your location, this means that your meter’s duty cycle could be nearly continuous. For much more about the health risks, as well as privacy concerns, you can have a look at this video. 

Every single second of that video will give you more information than City Power has so far. 

Complete failure to disclose important imformation about goods attached to the product

None of the above information is disclosed by City Power at all. In fact, the experience recounted from the letter referenced above, of City officials bullying their way onto people’s property without giving any info, is exactly what all residents have experienced. City Power is therefore acting in clear violation of the consumer protection act. 

The “tamper-proof” MYTH

Lastly, I want to thoroughly squash one of the City’s main “justifications”,  for installing these Stalin meters - illegal connections. 

The City claims their “smart” meters are tamper-proof, and are needed because of a high number of illegal connections! In the suburbs! Well, this is what one of their installations looks like, not even a kilometer from my house:

Tamper-proof my ass!