The City of Johannesburg says it has solved around 250 billing enquiries from residents living in the inner city.
The city is dealing with queries relating to billing issues that have affected about 8% of its one million account holders. Residents have complained of grossly inflated bills and payments not reflecting on invoices.
Stanley Maphologela, spokesman for the city's Johannesburg Revenue and Customer Revenue Management division, says in a statement that about 250 of 500 queries affecting inner city residents have been resolved.
At a meeting held with the Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition (JICBC), in early December, it was agreed that all outstanding queries received up to 10 December would be prioritised and tackled, the statement says.
The meeting identified 15 issues to fast-track, which consisted of revenue, rates and planning matters. The billing issues have come about as a result of the post-implementation phase of the city's migration of its legacy systems to a SAP platform.
“Primarily, some of these areas were very problematic and affected bulk users and vast numbers of tenants. This was having a major effect on people who live in some buildings,” said Hans Jooste of the JICBC.
JICBC was concerned about incorrect cut-offs, especially where the accounts had been queried, and requested that a better system be implemented before disconnections were made.
“A process was set in place to expedite reconnections where engagement on queries had started, this process worked well and the number of emergency interventions have been reduced to nearly zero,” Maphologela says.
However, Johannesburg resident Linus Muller is still fighting an uphill battle to have his queries with the city resolved.
Last month, Muller laid charges against mayor Amos Masondo and head of finance Parks Tau, at the Linden Police Station, for three alleged contraventions of the Municipal Systems Act.
Muller had hit a brick wall in trying to get his, and several other complaints, sorted out. However, the charges against Masondo and Tau, which were transferred to the Hillbrow station, have since been dropped.
Muller says neither the police nor the prosecutor informed him that the charges had been dropped; instead he was informed by a city official. “Was I naive enough to believe that citizens are protected by the justice system? Is this once again a case where government officials are above the law?”
Attempts to speak to Hillbrow police officers to confirm that the case has been dropped were unsuccessful this morning.
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