While there has been a “marked” improvement in the City of Johannesburg’s (COJ’s) billing system, there are still serious issues, with online systems having been largely “inaccessible” over the past two months.
This is according to Cor van Deventer, a director at conveyancing firm Van Deventer Dowlath & Marx Incorporated (VDM), in response to a statement from the city.
The COJ says it: “Firmly rejects recent sensational claims alleging a widespread ‘collapse’ of its billing system affecting 1.5 million customer accounts.”
In the middle of last month, Van Deventer said that billing system issues have affected 1.5 million accounts and frozen the sale of thousands of homes. He added that property transfers across the metro have stopped because of the city’s electronic billing and payments platform “collapse”.
In response, the city’s director of communications and stakeholder engagement, Kgamanyane Maphologela, issued a strongly-worded statement. The COJ said: “There is no evidence to support assertions that the city’s systems have collapsed, or that property transfers across Johannesburg have come to a standstill.”
The statement adds there are only just over a million accounts across the city, and not 1.5 million, as claimed.
“The claim that 1.5 million accounts are frozen, that no manual processes exist, or that property transfers have halted is simply untrue and unnecessarily alarmist,” says Lufuno Mashau, acting group head of the Revenue Shared Service Centre. “No credible evidence has been provided to support these figures.”
Occasional ‘technical challenges’
While Van Deventer concedes there has been a “marked improvement” over the past two weeks “with the system appearing to be operational and functioning more efficiently”, he notes “a backlog has clearly accumulated as a result of the earlier disruptions”.
“While the system may not have ‘collapsed’ in the strict sense, there were undeniable and significant operational failures during the period in question, which adversely affected clearance processing and property transfers.”
The city says, although technical challenges may occur from time to time, these do not constitute a system collapse.
“The city continues to strengthen system resilience through ongoing stabilisation and modernisation initiatives aimed at improving customer experience and operational efficiency.”
Heard this before
ITWeb reported in early February that the COJ was again battling to stabilise its SAP-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, a project aimed at improving municipal billing accuracy.
Comments circulating on WhatsApp groups, where angry residents have been venting frustrations, pointed to a synchronisation failure following a significant SAP ERP upgrade.
The metro faced similar SAP-related challenges before. In 2011, ITWeb broke the news that 65 000 account-holders were affected by inflated bills and threatened with disconnection.
The COJ says “property-related services remain operational, with both online and manual systems fully functional”. It adds that “clearance applications continue to be processed within 30 days, with certificates issued within 24 hours of payment confirmation”.
The city also notes it issued over 10 000 clearance certificates per quarter in the first two quarters of the 2025/26 financial year.
However, Van Deventer disputes these statements based on the firm’s experience within the conveyancing department. He says the turnaround times for clearance certificates has not been within the usual five to seven working days since late January.
“During February and March 2026, in particular, the city’s online systems, including the e-clearance portal, were largely inaccessible. This was not an isolated issue affecting our firm alone, but was experienced across multiple attorney firms,” he says. Because of this, the law firm was “frequently unable to log applications or access the system”.
Van Deventer says the company is experiencing delays of up to eight weeks, compounded by the fact that there aren’t enough COJ staff members and some applications are “only being attended to once weekly”.
At the same time, meters are not being linked to the system, while job cards do not reflect the installed meters, further delaying the issuing of clearance figures.
“These delays have materially impacted property transactions and cannot be reconciled with the city’s assertion that there has been no disruption affecting transfers,” Van Deventer says. In addition, clearance certificates are not being issued within 24 hours, as suggested.
As an example, VDM submitted three applications last week and is still waiting for the certificates.
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