Municipal bill angers resident

Ms Andrea Heyes, from Kensington, said she recently received a bill stating she owes a large sum to the city.

“The city is now charging people a deposit on municipal services. Why were residents not informed in advance that there is a change in policy where the city now requires a two month electricity deposit based on the highest consumption recorded plus R600 for water?

“The first R600 of any deposit applies to water and then an average of two of the highest months’consumption for electricity. All of this is still understandable, but it is not understandable when the city hikes up estimated readings for a few months to make it look like our consumption is high. In my case, the amount owed is R9 807.32. This amount is inflated,” she said.

The EXPRESS published an article last week stating that municipal account holders who were not charged deposits for electricity and water services will have these deposits billed to their accounts.

City of Johannesburg (CoJ) spokesperson, Mr Kgamanyane Maphologela, said the decision to raise the deposits is in-line with the city’s bylaws and means that customers who have no deposit reflected on their account will be required to pay an average of two months billing for their metered services.

Last week, Ms Heyes said her estimated reading last month was 7 000 kwhs higher than what was recorded on her meter.

She said she spoke to a city employee about her bill. She was apparently told that an audit was recently conducted and it was discovered some accounts were opened in error before a deposit was paid.

“I was told that deposits are reviewed every three years. I was told I need to go to a customer service centre with my proof of payment, but because I have owned this property for 32 years, I probably do not have that information anymore. So the city will have to check in their archived information regarding this.

“There is a contradiction here, because ‘checking the archives’ could have been done during the auditing process surely. I can prove my deposit paid initially was not reviewed in three years. It has not happened since we took ownership of the property. This new policy is basically another policy that the city is using to get money out of the consumer because its cash-flow is bad,” said Ms Heyes.

She said the city released her old deposit as a result of a consolidation of accounts and she is more than happy to pay it back. However, she added, “The deposit of R165.59, which is 32 years old, has not worked hand-in-hand with inflation. Technically, it should have escalated in value with inflation on an annual basis. However, the amount they want me to pay as a deposit is ridiculous,” she said.

She added that the lack of communication between the city and residents is frustrating. She asked why is it that she was surprised on July 30 with another astronomical bill relative to something which was overlooked by the city. She also questioned why a pre-termination notice was issued and stuck on her gate soon after.

@JoziReporter