Eskom's 'new' R400k clients

Thousands identified due to tech changeover.

The scramble that resulted in snaking lines at Eskom centres across the country for recoding of prepaid meters unearthed 400 000 customers who were not paying for power.

As of Sunday's deadline, about 5.5 million customers, including the almost 400 000 zero buyers, or nonpayers, successfully rolled over and are now transacting on key revision number KRN2.

Dan Marokane, group chief executive, said: "The result of this technology changeover has brought Eskom around 400 000 previous zero buyers to become new paying customers and provided us with a wealth of data to bring further zero buyers into legitimately purchasing electricity.