{"id":26,"date":"2016-03-26T15:33:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-26T13:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/?p=26"},"modified":"2016-03-26T15:34:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-26T13:34:15","slug":"free-state-schools-get-pre-paid-electricity-meters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/free-state-schools-get-pre-paid-electricity-meters\/","title":{"rendered":"Free State Schools get pre-paid electricity meters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Free State provincial government has installed pre-paid electricity meters at 35 schools in the Mangaung Metro as part of a pilot project ahead of a total roll-out throughout the province.<\/p>\n

The purpose is to cut back on the overall school electricity debt for the metro, which is standing at R30 million.<\/p>\n

The metro also plans to roll out pre-paid meters to all government departments and entities.<\/p>\n

Spokesperson for the Free State Education Department Howard Ndaba says this will encourage responsible use of electricity by schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ll know that most of our schools owe municipalities in electricity bills. So what we are trying to encourage from the schools is to make sure that there’s frugal or prudent use of electricity to make sure that we save electricity but also to assist municipalities to have proper revenue collections,\u201d says Ndaba.<\/p>\n

Schools are some of the biggest culprits in exorbitant electricity bills.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Matjhabeng Municipality cut the power to 72 public schools for non-payment of bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally schools receive an allocation every quarter so we’ll make sure that every quarter they get their allocation so that they can service their electricity. Then we’ll monitor the usage and service of that electricity. What we are trying to encourage from schools is to make sure that there’s prudent use of electricity but also to assist municipalities to have proper revenue collection,\u201d says Ndaba.<\/p>\n

Currently it is the responsibility of the provincial Department of Public Works to pay municipalities for services at all government buildings, but with the pre-paid system everyone will shoulder the responsibility of keeping their lights on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Source: SABC News – Pre-paid electricity metres installed in FS schools:Wednesday 9 March 2016<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Free State provincial government has installed pre-paid electricity meters at 35 schools in the Mangaung Metro as part of a pilot project ahead of a total roll-out throughout the province. The purpose is to cut back on the overall school electricity debt for the metro, which is standing at R30 million. The metro also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_glsr_average":0,"_glsr_ranking":0,"_glsr_reviews":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,6,5],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news","tag-free-state","tag-pre-paid","tag-schools","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28,"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/straton.co.za\/pre-paid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}