Figures don’t lie, people do

Madam – FIGURES DON’T LIE, PEOPLE DO.I don’t want to keep harping about the same subject in the newspaper every week but to
me it feels like the municipality is taking its ratepayers to the cleaners( am I allowed to say stealing from us) and we can do nothing about it.

Below are the dates and amounts of my municipal bills for the last 12 months.They can be submitted if needed.The mayor, his “gagged” staff or whoever can not dispute the figures. As much as they say meters were read late, they do not crook the books etc. etc. the figures speak for themselves.

Our average bill for the last 10 months was R2166 and the average for the last 2 months R3177. An increase of R1011 per month which is 46.6%. I realize that you can play around with figures but any sane person can see that there has been an exorbitant increase. Nothing has changed in our household (only two people) to result in the increases. They always have excuses about heaters,geysers etc.being used more in winter. The May account,in the middle, of winter was R1820 and now in September it is R3397. And please no air conditioners are in use. An increase of 86.6% in five months.

Reading date Amount due

29 Oct 2012 R2320

30 Nov 2012 R2172

29 Dec 2012 R2211

3 Feb 2013 R1990

5 Mar 2013 R2209

2 April 2013 R2056

1 May 2013 R1820

30 May 2013 R2177

2 July 2013 R2280

30 July 2013 R2431

2 Sept 2013 R2837

29 Sept 2013 R3397

I know that nothing can and will be done but I wanted to prove that they are robbing us of our hard earned money.

Disgusted

Response from Mayor, Afzul Rehman:

There is simply no conspiracy theories in the billing for electricity or other utilities. There is absolutely no benefit in the municipality cheating it’s ratepayers. We abide by a budget that governs the running of the municipality.

It takes our yearly forecast of revenue and expenses into account. This is a public document that anyone can peruse and investigate our sources of income. The reading of meters are done by human beings, and of course there will be room for human error.

We have ordered state of the art meter reading equipment that will allow scanning of a meter and info transferred directly to our financial system.

Anyone who believes they have used less electricity, has the option of requesting a re-reading of the meter and checking if the meter is working correctly.