The Johannesburg Attorneys' Association (JAA) is becoming increasingly frustrated by the City of Johannesburg's delays in issuing rate certificates, and is threatening to take the matter to court.
The association says thousands of rate clearance certificates have been outstanding since October, when the city started upgrading its computer systems to SAP.
The city started rolling out SAP under the project name Phakama, in November and December last year, with the pilot phase in the west of the city. Further roll-outs were scheduled to run between February and May. The project is expected to wrap up in June.
Phakama is the city's plan to move from disparate legacy systems onto an integrated platform that aims to provide better functionality in metered services, billing, collections, customer service and payment processes.
Painfully slow
However, the JAA says the project has caused nothing but headaches. Acting chairman of the association's property committee Anton Theron says the association may be forced to take the city to court if it doesn't resolve the rate clearance issue.
When properties are sold, the city must provide a clearance certificate to prove there are no outstanding amounts due to the council before the property can be transferred at the deeds office. Theron says the backlog affects most house sales in the Johannesburg area.
According to Theron, the association is compiling a list of outstanding certificates affecting its members to present to the council. He says the council had requested the list so that it can investigate the issue, and the JAA is co-operating.
However, should the council not resolve the situation to the JAA's satisfaction, it will look at going to court as a final option to force the city to do its job, notes Theron. “We are considering various options.”
It seems as if the city has finally accepted there is a problem with the system upgrade, he comments. At the end of April, the JAA provided the city with a list of 375 issues, which Theron says the city told him have been fixed.
Thousands of issues
However, the list of 375 issues is just the tip of the iceberg, he adds. Theron has heard reports of up to 40 000 rates clearance certificates being outstanding.
While unable to verify this figure, Theron suspects the information the JAA is seeking from its members will show there are thousands of certificates outstanding. At his own law practice, certificates have been outstanding since October, and it is common for certificates to take four months to finalise, instead of the usual five days, Theron comments.
The issue started when Phakama was rolled out in the west of the city, claims Theron. The SAP project has now moved to the south and north of the city, as well as Midrand and the central area. “That's where the burning problem is.”
However, Theron says, there are still issues with getting certificates for properties in the west of the city.
Compounding the problem is the fact that applications for certificates had been submitted before the migration to SAP, which have now either been lost or cannot be processed. Theron says these certificates go back into the queue, but no-one knows whether the applications get preferential treatment, or end up at the end of the queue.
No idea
The city is also unable to give the JAA an idea of how many certificates are outstanding, Theron points out. He says it is ironic that the JAA has been asked to compile numbers, as the city should be able to check the system, or look in the piles of boxes containing the applications.
The JAA is the largest voluntary association for lawyers in SA. It was founded in 1943 and has 3 500 members on whose behalf it acts. In the 1960s, it was instrumental in helping black lawyers earn better wages.
A meeting between the parties, scheduled to take place yesterday afternoon, was postponed at the request of the city so that it could look into the list of issues provided by the JAA.
Several attempts to get comment from the city were unsuccessful. However, in January, the city's director of special programmes, Abraham Mahlangu, told joburg.org.za that the programme had been successfully rolled out in the west of the city.
In March, spokesman Virgil James told ITWeb there were some initial delays in issuing rate clearance certificates on the old West Rand as a result of the process being initiated on the legacy system and not completed at the time of migration to SAP. “These delays were, however, resolved in January 2010,” he said.
SAP Africa declined to comment, referring queries back to the city.
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