The Democratic Alliance is outraged that trained SAP users at regional branches cannot help frustrated Johannesburg residents with billing queries, forcing citizens to deal with the council's head office.
However, the City of Johannesburg says the trained super-users at regional offices are not there to help residents, but to provide support for front-line staff, who forward enquires to the billing head office. As a result, all 80 000 billing queries must be dealt with by 110 people at a dedicated task team based at Thuso House, in Johannesburg.
The city has come under fire after residents complained of hugely inflated bills, some of which run into millions of rands. Residents have complained they have not been able to sort out these issues by dealing with front-line staff.
Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo previously said, of the million customers being billed, only 8% have raised queries. He admitted to limited problems with the billing system.
The billing issue is due to teething problems with the post-implementation phase of project Phakama, the city's R580 million plan to move its disparate and legacy billing systems onto a SAP platform.
Heavy burden
Ward councillor David Dewes alleges that staff members trained as SAP super-users at the Roodepoort office, who should be in a position to solve problems, complain they don't have the authority to use the system to solve billing problems.
“The officials are almost as frustrated as the residents they have to deal with, but their hands are tied, they can't do anything but refer the problems,” explains Dewes. He says this situation has come about because SAP super-users are not allowed to correct billing mistakes on the system, but have to refer these problems to Thuso House.
Dewes will demand that regional officials be empowered to solve problems. He says “it's a nightmare to manage queries from one office” and regional officers are better placed to solve issues, which would speed up the resolution process.
The situation is not unique to Roodepoort: similar situations have been reported at the Sandton and Midrand regions, confirms another councillor.
DA caucus leader, Vasco da Gama, has received complaints from staff in various regions, who cannot access the system, which delays the process of solving queries. He believes the problem is more widespread than three regions, as he has heard of people from Soweto and Eldorado Park trekking to town to have issues resolved.
Back-office only
Stan Maphologela, deputy director of customer communications at the city, explains the trained SAP super-users are located at regional offices to provide IT support to the front-line staff logging citizens' queries, and not to solve billing problems.
Billing queries are then sent to Thuso House to be dealt with by a dedicated task team, notes Maphologela. He says the task team is made up of about 110 people with specialities in different areas, such as property valuations.
Queries can only be dealt with by a specialised task team at Thuso House, partially to prevent illicit changes to residents' data, says Maphologela. “Queries need to be logged; they are not dealt with by the people in the front office.”
Maphologela says it doesn't make sense to have task teams at each regional office, as this would increase the work load for management and would not make the process of sorting out enquiries any faster.
It is usual practice within industries such as the financial sector to have a specialised team working in the back-office to solve issues that cannot be dealt with by front-line staff, explains Maphologela.
Front-line staff at regional offices and the call centre receive queries ranging from issues with electricity readings, to inflated bills and general enquires, says Maphologela. General issues such as outstanding amounts can be provided by front-line staff, but other issues are referred to the specialised task team at Thuso House.
Maphologela says some of the issues can be dealt with by the back-office, such as investigating a bill, but others need to be sent to the relevant department, such as Joburg Water or to meter readers. He adds there are problems and queries, but not across all areas of the city's services and these are being tackled.
However, he adds that front-line staff can access an enquiry's status through the system, and give feedback to residents, or escalate an issue if it is not being resolved quickly enough, says Maphologela.
Of the 1 895 staff who need to use the system, 1 793 employees, or 94.6%, have been trained on SAP, says Maphologela. He adds 58 delegates are undergoing refreshment training after the initial sessions. “Training is an ongoing process linked to needs analysis.”
DA finance spokesman John Mendelsohn says centralisation is not the answer as it will delay resolution. The city should have people on the ground who can “resolve queries there and then. The city is paying lip service to assisting customers with their difficulties.”
(Additional reporting by Kathryn McConnachie.)
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