MM explains how bill blunder was rectified
Municipal manager, Kebone Masange, says any reduction residents would have seen in this months electricity account would have been negligible.
Any reduction residents may have seen in their electricity accounts, after the revenue collection blunder was corrected, would have been negligible, according to municipal manager, Kebone Masange.
After more than 100 ratepayers bemoaned that the fact that their utility bills reflected an inexplicable increase in electricity consumption the previous month, it was discovered that electricity meter readers, employed by the municipality, had not been performing their duties effectively for various reasons.
Some staff members were reported to have been sick, on leave or simply arrived late for work during when the meter readings for September were supposed to have been taken.
As a result, meter readings were taken late and instead of being billed for a 30 / 31 day period, like residents were supposed to, they ended up being billed for up to nine additional days on an increasing block tariff.
Mr Masange was apologetic, at the time, promising that residents would see a reduction in their October account, when the billing was corrected.
Many have complained that this reduction never materialised and some say their October bill was even higher than September.
Asked for an explanation, Mr Masange warned that one should not generalise the extent to which residents’ electricity bills were affected by the blunder.
“Accounts are specific to each household. There are some people who spend less that R1 200 on electricity and others who spend more than R4 000. This will determine which tariff block is implemented. We did not agree to give residents a refund. What we have done is, where you were charged for seven to nine extra days with the September accounts, you paid for seven to nine days less in October, which should have given you a lower account. Also remember that not everyone was billed for nine extra days, some people were only billed for three or four extra days and would not see a big difference in their accounts,” explained Mr Masange.
“Some people were happy with how the situation was resolved and one woman actually came and thanked me, saying that she had seen a R300 reduction in her account. By now, everybody should be back on par,” he concluded.
