ETHEKWINI Municipality has urged customers to approach the City if they have any queries relating to their utility bills.
The City urges all customers who may have received an unusually high bill to contact the City directly via the Revline call centre, or the the nearest customer care centre, Sizakala Centre. The City will not disclose any information concerning customers’ bills with a third party.
The City assured its customers that the Revenue Management System (RMS) was fully tested and audited, including its capability and accuracy, prior to being implemented.
In a media release this week, the city said it processed in excess of a million bills per month. Of these less than 1000 have been incorrect due to the cut over period when the systems changed, meter reading challenges and in some instances, human error when capturing readings.
According to the municipality, apart from these challenges which resulted in some customers receiving inaccurate bills, all bills are thoroughly checked for accuracy. In terms of the Council process any accounts that are picked up to be out of the norm in terms of the charges raised are trapped and sifted for further analysis.
The municipality advised customers to check their readings in comparison with previous bills to determine the accuracy of the amount charged.
“If there is a high water consumption, customers may check for a possible water leak. Meters can also be tested at the customer’s request. Customers should take note that a bill consists of certain information that makes up the total charges namely, property value, meter readings for electricity and water and tariffs used to charge for each of the service,” read the statement.
How does the wrong bill happen?
THIS happens when incorrect readings are captured and released before proper audit analysis can be finalised. This has been addressed with the various units to ensure staff are appropriately trained to correctly address the audit report produced by the system.
The municipality said this was not unique, it happened in the old system and it was dealing with the errors on a case by case basis.
Due to more security on the system the turnaround time for the correction was very slow, but this has been addressed and it has improved.
What can a customer do if there is a belief that the bill is incorrect?
1. Check your readings with the readings on the bill.
2. If it is an estimated charge, check the volume used to estimate if the charges correlate to the previous bill where the daily average is recorded.
3. If there is high water consumption, check for a water leak.
4. If the customer believes that there is still a problem, contact water and electricity departments to have the meters tested.
All other billing queries can be directed to revline@durban.gov.za or 031 324 5000.
Customers can send their electricity meter readings to custocare@elec.durban.gov.za, call 080 1313 011 or SMS 083 7000 819.
