The Joburg Advocacy Group (JAG) is so irked by the billing crisis affecting thousands of residents in SA's economic hub that it has complained to the Public Protector's office in a bid to get the situation resolved.
Meanwhile, JAG says, complaints about erroneous and grossly inflated bills continue to pour into its offices. The volume of issues, it argues, rubbishes the council's claims that it is making progress in reducing the amount of statement queries.
Residents have complained for several months about grossly-inflated bills, and unfair cut-offs. Mayor Amos Masondo has said the queries are limited to 8% of the million account-holders within the city - about 80 000.
The problem with the billing system is due to post-implementation issues with the city's project Phakama. The SAP project, completed in the middle of last year, at a cost of R580 million, aimed to move the city's disparate legacy systems onto a single system, to allow for greater accountability and better controls.
However, city residents have been frustrated since the move, with many reports of hugely inflated bills that residents have been unable to resolve through the Joburg Connect call centre.
According to recent press reports, the city claims to have resolved about half of all queries, but ITWeb was unable to confirm these figures, as the city did not respond to repeated queries about the situation.
Nothing yet
JAG founding member Lee Cahill says the group e-mailed the Public Protector's office last Thursday with the complaint, after unsuccessfully lodging it online but - as of Friday - had yet to receive an acknowledgement. She argues that “all levels of government are failing us”.
Cahill argues that the city is extorting residents to pay bills it can't prove are accurate by threatening to cut them off. Cahill says bills went out to residents last week and the group was “flooded” by complaints that the statements were inaccurate.
According to Cahill, people have complained about refuse removal costing R1 000 when it should cost around R128, bills of R6 000, and one person tweeted about a statement showing R6 million in arrears.
Cahill argues that the city is not resolving the situation, although she says there have been a few reports of successful resolution.
The city had promised to intervene before wrong bills are sent out, and set up a dedicated hotline to call residents who have billing queries.
However, the complaint sent to the Public Protector states that residents, including Cahill, have received bills with inaccurate billing information, unjustified “interim” charges for electricity, uncredited payments, duplicate bills and bills that are in arrears, even when residents are in credit.
According to the complaints, residents are intimidated into paying, and have no recourse against the city when their bills are in dispute. Cahill has appealed to the Public Protector to investigate the situation “as a matter of urgency”.
No information
The Democratic Alliance has also lambasted the way the billing issue is being handled.
Gauteng finance spokesman Mike Moriarty recently ridiculed the MEC for local government and housing, Humphrey Memezi, for claiming only “8 000 people out of a million in Gauteng are unhappy with their billing”. Moriarty says “8 000 is a gross underestimation”.
Stan Maphologela, deputy director of customer communications in the city's revenue and customer relations department, says: “We cannot respond objectively to hearsay without any reference to an account which is a key link between the city and the customer.”
Maphologela did not provide any information as to how many queries had been resolved, or how many complaints had been received by the city since the last bill run. He also did not comment on the complaint to the Public Protector's office.
The Public Protector's office was not immediately available to comment this morning.
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