City billing system efficiency intact

The City of Johannesburg had dismissed the misinformation that the municipality’s billing system is in a chaotic state and unable to generate accurate bills.

The billing system’s efficiency is intact and it is functional and up to date.

Kgamanyane Maphologela, director of communications and stakeholder management, said the system remained in working order during the hard lockdown period whereby at the time the City’s meter readers could not physically go out to read water meters.

“As a result, a mass estimation of water consumption for April for a number of residents was conducted,” said Maphologela.

“However, the City was able to obtain actual meter readings in May, which assisted the City in making the correct adjustments on the June municipal accounts that were affected by the mass estimation.

“The same process was followed during the period between June and August when new tariffs came into effect. At no point did the billing system seize to function as expected.

“The City would like to assure ratepayers that the billing system is functional and up to date. It is able to generate, issue and manage bills as expected. The claim by a Johannesburg opposition party that billing has been in a chaotic state during the lockdown is not correct.

“The escalation in water and electricity charges which the party referred to can be attributed to a number of factors that include the newly increased tariffs and an increased usage of water and electricity during the hard lockdown period whereby residents were mandated as per the national lockdown regulations to stay home for a prolonged period,” explained Maphologela.

Maphologela said in July, the Johannesburg Council approved reduced tariff increases for both water and electricity of 6.6 per cent from a proposed 8.6 per cent and 6.23 per cent from 8.10 per cent, respectively.

The City has more than 900 000 properties that range from residential, commercial office space and multi-purpose that are collectively valued at R1.4-trillion.

“The City issues bills in excess of 1.1 million municipal accounts every month and there are approximately 7 000 queries related to various services on the system. This is a query rate of less than one per cent of general queries that also include billing-related queries.

“To ensure the less than one per cent queries are resolved, the City always attempts to resolve them within 30 days.
“An escalation process is followed where customers are not satisfied with the way their queries have been resolved.

One of the ways the escalation was effected was through the hosting of open days between August and November, which were designed to ensure customers’ outstanding queries, particularly the water-related ones, were speedily resolved.

“This came after a high number of customer queries and complaints were received for consumption bills issued during the lockdown period. Tariff increases for 2020/21 have been identified as another contributing factor to the increased volume of queries.

“Ratepayers were encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to resolve any outstanding billing queries and engage in mechanisms to better manage their municipal accounts. Due to lockdown level two regulations, a structured approach was taken to ensure the safety of staff and customers.

“Email addresses and telephone numbers were set upper region for booking and registration purposes and the process was communicated to customers widely and timeously.”

Maphologela said a total of 7 146 queries were attended to during open days and majority of the queries were resolved on the spot as all the City’s technical teams from departments and entities were onsite.

The queries received that related to billing specifically were 2 546 in total, while the rest were for updating of account information and clarity-seeking queries.

The City will continue hosting open days in 2021 to further assist customers to resolve outstanding matters brought to their attention. This will be done in line with Covid-19 regulations and adjusted lockdown levels.

Furthermore, municipal account holders in financial distress are encouraged to contact the City’s Credit Control Department to make payment arrangements via email at creditcontrol@joburg.org.za

Ratepayers may also query their bills by logging queries via the region-based email at regionFrevenue@joburg.org.za