Unfair practices: Poor residents deprived of basic services

RESIDENTS in various areas of the South have been deprived of water and electricity services, due to incorrect meter readings by council officials resulting in inflated billing amounts.

While this billing catastrophe has affected residents in past years, the continuation of the problem has left people without basic services, such as water or electricity.

Councillors for wards 56 and 57 confirmed that there’s a crisis with the billing system and that no one knows how to fix it; when the council does take action, the solution is often temporary.

Clr Dennis Jane (Ward 56) said: “This problem has been in existence for years. The city doesn’t read meters as often as they should and, if they do, the information is not captured correctly, or it’s estimated. In some cases they realise that the incorrect information has been captured and then they issue an accumulated bill.”

Residents are issued with accrued bills in efforts by the city to rectify undercharging.

According to Jane, there’s an inconsistency with the rectification process as there are properties with huge bills that do not get cut off, while some residents are cut off after a period of three months.

Ward 57’s Clr Faeeza Chame said residents in her ward have been hit hard by the billing crisis, as most of the residents cannot afford to pay 50 per cent of the incorrect bill up front, to have the services restored.

“The problem is getting worse; more residents are complaining about the billing and that their water and lights have been cut off,” she explained.

”This is very unhealthy because of sanitation, so it means that they don’t have water to bath.”

Both ward councillors noted that, without the relevant documents and reference numbers for queries to the council, it becomes extremely difficult to track and resolve problems such as these.