No South Africa, Eskom won't give you R5,000 for reporting illegal electricity connections
IN SHORT: Social media posts promising rewards for reporting "bridging" are false information, South Africa's power utility has confirmed. Eskom said there is no reward programme, urging South Africans to stay vigilant.
A claim circulating on social media platforms in August 2024 promises that Eskom, South Africa's strained power utility, will "pay you R5000 if you report a house that has bridged electricity".
Illegal electricity bridging involves bypassing an electricity meter to avoid recording usage and incurring fees.
The claim was circulated in multiple posts across social media platforms. One Facebook post received over 56,000 views, and another more than 15,000 views, among some less popular versions. The same claim was also seen on social media platform X, with older examples dating back to July. An earlier post from June has been viewed over 576,000 times, and there are other versions from as far back as February.
Eskom repeatedly dismissed false rumours
Eskom has denied the existence of a reward programme. On 14 August, the power utility's official X account dismissed the claim as "false information" and urged customers to remain vigilant.
This message echoed a similar post from June, where Eskom said that it "has no such programme" offering a reward for reporting illegal connections. In the June post, Eskom also encouraged users to report false information via an email address dedicated to whistleblowing.
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The claim's circulation coincided with Eskom's announcement on 16 August that it had achieved 142 days without power disruption, or load shedding. Eskom said this was under its Generation Operational Recovery Plan, which aims to address the country's power crisis.
The utility warned that illegal connections threaten to disrupt electricity provision by exceeding the supply allocated to a particular area. It has previously blamed some power outages on consumption overloads caused by illegal connections. People unable to afford the cost of electricity sometimes reportedly resort to bridging their home meters.
To avoid falling for false messages, you can verify information through official communication channels. In this case, Eskom's official X account features multiple posts alerting the public about the false information circulating about rewards for reporting illegal connections.
The original message also did not originate from Eskom's official channels. This would be expected if the power utility was genuinely offering a reward to encourage the public to report this illegal activity - which it is not.
