Orange Farm households switched to prepaid smart meters, Johannesburg Water confirms

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Customers without meters will be deemed to have refused the meters hence bylaws will be enforced that will result in the disconnection of their water supply.

Residents of Orange Farm and surrounding areas will have to dig deep into their pockets for water consumption from Monday.

This comes after Johannesburg Water rolled out new smart meters as the entity is switching from open mode to prepaid smart meters.

In a statement issued, the water supplier said this means that customers from areas such as Cosmo City, Orlando East and West, Diepkloof and Orange Farm will be able to buy water from this day onwards.

#REMINDER ????????????
Johannesburg Water to switch from open mode to prepaid smart meters ^P https://t.co/jjPj01Lefb

— Johannesburg Water (@JHBWater) July 27, 2023

“The benefit of prepaid smart meters is that customers will be able to pay their consumption, but those without meters will be billed for availability charges or deemed consumption which in most cases is above their consumption and more expensive.

“Currently, the process of pairing the open meters with Customer Interface Units (CIUs) is taking place. Therefore, Johannesburg Water urges customers to grant their teams access to their properties for the process of meter pairing. Customers without meters will be deemed to have refused the meters hence bylaws will be enforced that will result in the disconnection of their water supply,” the statement read.

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Meanwhile, Johannesburg Water (JW) says following the isolation of the Orange Farm Reservoir on Wednesday, an unexpected overflow occurred which prompted the water supplier to request Rand Water to reduce their supply to the reservoir.

“Subsequently, this led to water supply challenges to the Ennerdale and Lawley reservoirs. Consequently, the water outage now also affects the Ennerdale, Mid-Ennerdale, Lawley and Poortjie areas. Orange Farm, including all the extensions, Drieziek, Lakeside, and Stretford, which are supplied by the Orange Farm reservoir, are also still affected.”

JW could not estimate time of completion for the repairs.