POLOKWANE – The municipality cannot give clarity as to why there are so many residents in the city receiving high municipal accounts, which could be incorrect.
However, according to municipal spokesperson, Tidimalo Chuene, the municipality is working on making sure that customers’ accounts are free from any errors. Various factors could contribute towards having a high municipal account.
Some of the complaints received by Review this month are:
• The water meter reading on the municipal account differs with a lot of units from the actual reading on the water meter.
• Residents have been billed for two water meters, but they only have one water meter on their premises.
• The municipality has not billed residents for water consumption one month, but bills them double the amount the following month.
• The municipality claims that the account holder did not pay for a certain period or did not pay the full amount and the account reflects that the person is in arrears.
This month the municipality issued a notice to all ratepayers in which residents are advised to report any account queries to four municipal officials whose numbers and names are listed.
The numbers are:
• Savile Palmer – (015) 290 2591.
• Maphefo Moloto – (015) 290 2059.
• Jacob Majola – (015) 290 2240.
• Suzanne Malan – (015) 290 2036.
But residents say when they call these numbers all they get is a busy tone or no answer. Review called the numbers and can confirm that there is either no answer or the caller gets a busy tone on some of the numbers.
A local businessman said he tried to contact the municipality on Monday morning from 08:00 and by 12:00 he could still not get through to any of the numbers listed on the notice. “Our municipal account is paid via debit order and we noticed that the municipality only deducted the electricity and not the rest of the account. We wanted to query this before the account goes into arrears, but none of the numbers work,” he said.
Another resident said his municipal account this month was more than R70 000. He went to the municipal office to query this, but no one could help him. “I was sent from one person to the next. Because no one could help me at the municipal office I called the municipal numbers on the letter we received this month to find out what is going on, but had no luck.
“My son’s friend works at the municipality and I asked him to check what was wrong with my account and he found that on their records it shows that I did not pay my account for eight months between March 2013 and March this year. This is impossible because I pay my account every month and the bill is usually between R4 000 and R5 000, never more than R6 000,” the man said.
He added that last month his municipal account was more than R57 000. “This is ridiculous. How can a household pay so much. My goodness it’s not like we own a factory,” he said annoyed.
Chuene said as far as they knew the numbers were in working order, however, they had requested technicians to check the numbers again.
She said residents should update their profiles in order to receive regular statements and other service-related information.
“We remain committed to offering our residents a good customer care experience,” she said.
