Johannesburg residents face overcharges, service cuts due to billing errors.
Perhaps Johannesburg’s executive mayor, Dada Morero, has his hands full these days trying to put lipstick on the pig of the city’s declining infrastructure ahead of the G20 summit.
But he really should spend some time in the ironically named “service centres” in the suburbs to get an inkling of how pathetic the treatment is of those honest residents who try to pay their dues.
He will encounter horror story upon horror story of homeowners overcharged astronomical amounts for electricity and other services, or those cut off without warning… all because the bills they have been sent are wrong.
The incompetence in the billing departments has got so bad that, earlier this year, City Power took back the billing responsibility from the central administration, recruiting more people to sort out the mess.
Will that help? What do you think?
What is shocking, though, is that – as Our City News reports for us today – the city cannot provide councillors or the public with a list of the myriad court cases on billing which it has lost, nor any information about what steps have been taken to either fire, or retrain, the incompetents responsible for the chaos.
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In recent months, at least six major cases have gone against the city, involving erroneous bills totalling millions of rands.
In some instances, judges have ordered the reinstatement of illegally terminated services.
Court judgments have slated the city for “unlawful and abusive municipal conduct” – setting a precedent that municipalities can be held accountable for their billing failures, at least.
When it comes to revealing disciplinary consequences, if any, the city hides behind the Protection of Private Information Act.
That in itself begs the question: does someone working for the public have any expectation of privacy when it comes to incompetence?
Once again, people are evading accountability.
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