The Nigerian consulate in Johannesburg, South Africa is currently experiencing a power outage due to the humongous electricity bill owed by the diplomatic mission leading to disconnection.

Despite being denied access to the consulate, Johannesburg City Power heads came with the Metro Police Department to effect the disconnection of the power supply.

A local online platform, IOL, on Wednesday, quoted the City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, as saying, “The Nigerian consulate-general has been defaulting since last year but they promised to clear up the bill by January after the disconnection.

“The consul-general visited our Service Delivery Centre in Alexandra, and agreed to pay the deposit, with the rest to be paid by the end of the month,” said Mangena.

“The same with The Catalyst Hotel, even though we realised that the hotel had lodged some queries on the debt, which we will be attending to. However, they paid R400, 000 and were reconnected and we will proceed to address their query.”

“Power was restored late afternoon after the arrangement was made. They owed over R400, 000, and they put up a R150,000 deposit,” he added.

Meanwhile, over the past three days, churches and other businesses have been on the receiving end of City Power’s drive to disconnect electricity from customers whose municipal accounts are in arrears.

In November, City Power disconnected its services to a block of flats in Hillbrow. The building owes more than R5m to the city.

The utility had tried to cut off the electricity in the previous week, but angry residents hurled rocks and other objects at the city’s technicians.

The PUNCH made frantic efforts to contact the consulate for comment but was unsuccessful as messages sent to their mail (cgjhb@nigerianconsulatesa.org) were not replied to as of the time of filing this report.