MOSSEL BAY NEWS - In Mossel Bay, by 29 May, 91% of prepaid electricity meters had been updated.
This was necessary because the Token Identifier (TID) Rollover system was expected to run out of credit token numbers by the end of 2024.
This was a software issue that, unless updated in time, would affect prepaid electricity from 24 November 2024.
Mossel Bay Municipality is one of five municipalities in the country that have either finished or nearly finished their rollover projects.
According to the municipal manager, Colin Puren, the municipality was informed of the need to perform the rollover in May 2018, when an important notice from the STS Association was received.
The municipality decided to incorporate the TID Rollover into the "Pre-Paid Vending" tender as a portion of the tender included the physical auditing of prepaid meters and tamper management. The tender was awarded and implemented on 1 July 2019.
Director of Infrastructure Services Dick Naidoo added: "The TID rollover project is undertaken by Utilities World and is overseen by the Finance Income Department."
Home visit
Puren says, "We added a new section into the tender for the tenderer to provide the necessary services and to visit each and every meter and physically do the TID rollover on each meter." Residents will recall notifications in the media in this regard.
The rollover project in Mossel Bay is ongoing and by 29 May, 91.3%, or 33 235 of the 36 506 local prepaid meters had been updated.
"During the TID rollovers, the contractor does an audit of the meters and checks whether the meter was tampered with," Puren said.
"Once the update is performed, the history of the meter is cleared and it is impossible then to know whether tokens were captured on the meter or not. Residents should note that the credit on old tokens will not work on the meter once the update is performed."
Holiday homes
According to Puren, the task team performing the update inserts the last five tokens purchased for the meter before updating the meter, and residents should ensure that all tokens prior to the last five are already in the meter before the update is completed.
"In Mossel Bay Municipality's case, there are many holiday homes where access to meters remains a problem. Special arrangements need to be made with the owners to access the meters," Puren added.
Executive Mayor Dirk Kotzé says: "TID Rollover is yet another example of where Mossel Bay Municipality is ahead of the curve. If we had only started with the project now, it would have been impossible to complete the project before November 2024. The only other option would be to ask consumers to do the roll-over themselves, but there would be challenges."
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