I refer to the letters of Hilary Finck and Deane in your issue of Tuesday 7 August, protesting the exploitative home user charge. Both those correspondents are urging us not to pay the charge. I agree with them. My home was built 15 years ago. Presumably the pre-pay metre was installed then. Previous owners and myself have read the metre, so the City does not have to pay a metre reader. Our electricity is prepaid, so the City does not have to employ a debt collector. The City writes off billions of rand in uncollected water and electricity revenue each year. We, the compliant, are apparently expected to make up the shortfall. People have a strong sense of fair play and the electricity home user charge is simply cheating. The City is adding R168.95 (the charge plus VAT) per month to my electricity cost, with no benefit to me. The slogan was once “This City works for you”. I think it has been altered to “You work for this City”.
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