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Rate hike delays Joburg bills

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 27 Jul 2011

The City of Johannesburg's more than one million account-holders will receive their bills late this month, as the city battles to integrate new rates into its billing system.

The delay comes after the city claimed, at the end of last month, that it had fixed the inherent problems with its billing systems, bringing to an end a billing crisis that has plagued thousands of residents for more than a year-and-a-half.

In a statement, the city says the hold-up in issuing bills is due to the delay in the “implementation and finalisation of annual electricity tariffs process”, which came into effect at the beginning of the month.

As a result, customers will receive their July statements late and in some cases after their usual due date, says the city. It adds that account-holders that receive their statements online will receive invoices from Monday.

However, ITWeb this morning unsuccessfully attempted to retrieve an invoice online. Yesterday, a call centre agent said the Web site was being updated. The city did not respond to a request for clarity on the Web site's functionality.

A notice on the site says: “We are currently experiencing a technical problem with the accounts by e-mail application on this site. Our technical team is busy looking at the problem. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

Revenue and customer relations department spokesman Kgamanyane Maphologela says customers should “continue to pay their municipal accounts as per their normal monthly consumption”.

Audit the city

More than 65 000 account-holders have been affected by the city's chaotic billing system since November 2009. Residents complained about grossly inflated bills, inaccurate meter readings, illegal disconnections and a lack of service from the city's call centre.

The problem with the billing system was due to post-implementation issues with project Phakama, the city's R580 million SAP implementation. The project, completed in the middle of last year, aimed to move disparate legacy systems onto a single platform, to allow for greater accountability and better controls.

The National Consumer Commission has since stepped in, indicating it will put the city on notice to solve about 200 queries on its books. If it fails to do so, the city faces a fine of up R1 million for each unresolved problem.

“The only way forward is for a full and independent forensic audit of the entire system to be conducted, including the IT system and work processes,” says Lee Cahill, founding member of the Joburg Advocacy Group.

The tariff tables are complex, explains Cahill. “As far as domestic tariffs are concerned, the tables are so complex - and differ quite markedly from last year's tables - that even our energy consultants say they're a mess.”

Cahill questions how the new tariffs will be entered into the city's billing system, and whether individual consumers will be accurately billed.

The online service has been undergoing an “upgrade” for more than a year, notes Cahill. “The bottom line, as we see it, is that the back-end is in such a mess that it can't be linked to the online delivery channel.”

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