Battle of the bills

In June 2014 the municipality was praised when they implemented a system whereby residents could receive their accounts statements via email. The municipal manager at the time Mr Theo Van Vuuren announced the system went online from June 30 of that year and people had only good things to say about it. Ms Annette Smith said; “Fantastic. At least something works right for a change. Thanks.”
“Thanks Theo. The new system is amazing wow! Keep up the excellent work. Well done,” said Ms Cathrene Austin.

However recently people have stopped receiving their statements and are struggling to get the problem cleared up. “How can I pay my account when I don’t even know what my bill is this month,” said an anonymous resident.
The residents who are experiencing problems are in the dark about what the issue is as they claim they cannot get clarity on how long it will take to fix or what they can do to get their statements in the mean time. Theo Van Vuuren and Lebo Mofokeng a spokesperson for the municipality has been contacted for comment.

Incorrect and hugely inflated account problems get reported to the Witbank News on an almost weekly basis as residents fight to get their water and lights accounts straightened out.

A screenshot of a resident’s call log trying to get through to the account department at the Municipality.

A resident of Del Judor has apparently received a water bill that is about 40 times higher than normal. According to the bill this retired man living by himself is using more water than several family households combined.
However Mr Van Vuuren has addressed this issue in a statement issued recently.

“At this stage all confirmation I have is that the metre reading period was 43 days, not uncommon over the festive season but, whether this is the full explanation I am not convinced. I have now requested a report by tomorrow from the relevant officials dealing with these matters to get to a position where mitigation can be decided upon should something be wrong.”

The statement does give some hope to affected residents,

“The only assurance I can give at this time is that there is no deliberate attempt to get undue money from customers. It appears to be a technical issue. In addition we will be replacing the companies doing meter readings and a tender will be published to that effect soon. Council already resolved on this following the continuous problems we are experiencing with incorrect readings.”

It concludes by saying they are also reviewing the billing system itself and the option to outsource it has been discussed. The sms system seems to still be operational to view your balance.

SMS the keyword BAL, space followed by your seven digit account number to 47439.

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