The first phase of the Token Identifier process in which the software of all prepaid electricity meters are being updated has been completed.
Swartland Municipality says it has made excellent progress with the TID (Token Identifier) process and to date has completed more than 76% of all the prepaid meters in the region.
“The software of almost every prepaid electricity meter in the world must be updated via the TID process before 24 November 2024. Swartland Municipality oversees 11 763 meters. These are all residents and/or businesses who purchase their electricity from the municipality. The first phase of the TID project involved various teams on the ground, going door to door in the towns where the municipality is the electricity provider,” Joggie Scholtz, Municipal Manager, explained.
The municipality will soon launch phase 2 of the project, which will allow residents whose meters have not yet been updated to do it themselves via the use of WhatsApp messaging. Phase 3 will involve the printing of tokens at the vendors where electricity can be purchased.
“This will, however, be our last phase and part of our efforts to target the last stragglers in the project,” Scholtz said. “The municipality aims to have converted all meters by June 2024.
“As a municipality we have some concerns about the progress that Eskom is making with the updating of meters in their areas of supply since the questions and concerns are being channelled to the municipality.”
Swartland Municipality consists of 12 towns and villages, of which seven towns and villages are directly supplied by Eskom. The electricity customers in the towns of Riebeek-West, Riebeek-Kasteel, Korinberg, Abbotdale, Chatsworth, Riverlands and Kalbaskraal will be contacted by Eskom regarding the updating of their electricity meters.
“This means that there are several thousand meters in our region where the municipality cannot assist residents and must wait for Eskom,” said Scholtz.
“Not updating the meters will have serious service-delivery consequences for the municipality, so we thus encourage those customers whose meters have not yet been updated to support the WhatsApp process during phase 2 and the vendor-issued token process in phase 3 of the project.”
With Scholtz Executive Mayor Harold Cleophas stated: “We are also grateful and appreciate the support our customers have provided during phase 1 of the project. This has indeed helped us to reduce the risks and to be ahead of the pack when compared to some other municipalities in the country.”
