Joburg billing crisis – meter readings being ‘thumb-sucked’, says official
The City of Joburg’s billing crisis is much worse than initially thought, according to a member of the mayoral committee (MMC) responsible for finance.
Rabelani Dagada, in a 10 May report by The Star, said that the city was still receiving close to 15,000 new billing complaints a month, and there was currently a backlog of over 44,000 queries as of March 2017.
“This number is increasing because of constant estimations of consumption, which are often thumb-sucked by meter readers,” Dagaba said.
“It was embarrassing to write off R8 billion debt two years ago, which was said to be non-traceable, but could have been traced. It is not necessarily corruption – it could be that the data is incorrect,” he said.
Dagaba also highlighted current issues surrounding the city’s property valuation system, with the city having to file over 60,000 objections against its own service provider due to incorrect evaluations.
However, these incorrect evaluations work both ways, warned Dagaba, noting that while many residents were being overcharged on their metered readings, there were thousands of property owners whose properties are undervalued and should be paying much more.
“All round, we will be collecting more money aggressively, which will not make us popular. This has to be done as we estimate that out of 150 properties, only about 120 are sent bills,” he said.
The review of Johannesburg’s billing systems follows a continued push by new city mayor, Herman Mashaba, to root out corruption across the city.
Speaking at his first State of the City address as mayor earlier in May, Mashaba noted that since his inauguration in August 2016, a zero-tolerance approach to fraud and corruption has led to the city uncovering R10 billion in lost or misused funding.
“This figure is utterly sickening,” Mashaba said.
“This money should have been utilised to provide much needed service delivery to communities throughout Johannesburg – especially the poor. That is why we will continue to vigorously pursue every allegation of corruption. The days of a gentle slap on the wrist, or redeployment to another department, are over.”
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