Hosting a community awareness campaign at Cresta Crossing this week, the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) Revenue Department continued its efforts to make municipal services more accessible.

The outreach formed part of a citywide programme aimed at bringing services directly to communities, particularly pensioners and elderly residents who often struggle to reach municipal centres.

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According to Jabu Dhlamini, deputy director of stakeholder relations at the CoJ Revenue Shared Services Centre (RSSC), the drive provides a full range of municipal support. “We are here to help customers with their queries. Our teams assist with logging new issues, resolving cases linked to Johannesburg Water, pensioner rebates, expanded social package (ESP) applications, and more.”

The team also helped residents register on the city’s online portal, eJoburg, which allows customers to download municipal statements of up to 24 months, upload electricity meter readings, and apply for acknowledgement of debt online.

Dhlamini emphasised that the same services available at municipal centres are offered at these community drives. However, bringing them to local shopping centres ensures greater accessibility. “Most of our centres are far from where people live. By coming closer to communities, especially targeting pensioners, we save them long trips. That’s why most of the people you see here today are elderly residents.”

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For residents like Hussein Dawjee, the drive provided an opportunity to seek answers to long-standing frustrations with his electricity meter. “I’ve had one of the earliest digital meters since last year, but it has been faulty for months. Each time I log a call, someone comes to check and confirms it’s faulty, but nothing gets fixed. Then the call gets closed, and I must log it again. I’m on my ninth call now.”

Dawjee, who has installed 12 solar panels and relies mainly on renewable energy, said the faulty meter leaves him with inflated estimated bills. “Every month I’m being given an estimated cost, and it’s not fair. What I want to know is: how can they accelerate the fixing process?”

The CoJ team holds these awareness campaigns two to three times a week, rotating across regions in the city. Earlier this week, the team was in Region E before moving to Region B for the Cresta event.

Through initiatives like these, the city aims to reduce barriers to municipal services and improve customer satisfaction, particularly among vulnerable groups such as pensioners.

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