Seven hundred and fifty disputed municipal accounts were recently dropped off on the Municipal Manager, Pringle Raedani’s doorstep.
This comes after the DA commenced with a community-wide outreach to help residents with their disputed accounts. Along with these accounts, DA mayoral candidate, Tyrone Grey handed over a memorandum on September 17. This stated that residents and account holders were flabbergasted by increases reflecting on their municipal accounts.
The main issue came with meter readings that were done in June/ July.
As Councillor Jacqui Pannall explained to the News, increased tariffs came into effect on July 1, 2021. She added that they understood that the increases were necessary, but when residents received their accounts for readings that were taken between June and July, they noticed that they were being charged the increased tariffs even though the old tariffs still applied in June.
DA councillors in Mogale City embarked on a campaign to get feedback from the community due to the overwhelming frustration of residents with regards to high billing, lack of clearance certificates, Mogale not being able to provide accounts for residents who have relocated, 50 water-meter issues, high indigent accounts, 100% rebates for pensioners not implemented, electrical meter readings etc,” read the memorandum.
The DA asked that a moratorium be placed on disconnections due to the unresolved billing issues as well as remediation be done on these accounts. Another issue that arose was the fact that residents were billed in excess of a calendar month. Some accounts had a 38 to 41 day reading cycle instead of a 28 to 32 day cycle. This meant that because of the step-up tariff structure residents were placed in a more costly usage bracket.
Pannall said when the DA asked about calculating pro rata rates for the June readings, the party representatives were told that the Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) systems were unable to do such calculations.
The community made the councillors aware of much more than just electricity billing issues. They were shown two accounts on which residents were charged for five million and 2.5 million litres of water respectively in one month.
Surely internal audits should have picked this up? That is what you would expect of a caring municipality,” Pannall said.
Another resident had been doing their electricity readings the same way since 2010. Then in June this year, another meter was added and now this family is being billed for both meters.
A man in Krugersdorp North had a pre-paid meter installed but still gets billed for his municipal meter as well. These are only a few of the many complaints that have come to the councillors’ attention.
The News went with the DA when the 750 accounts and memorandum were handed over and also enquired with the MCLM about feedback on these accounts, the claims made and what was being done to help residents fix these issues. But unfortunately no feedback was received. If you have an issue with your municipal account, speak to your ward councillor.
