Last week, I held a meeting with officials in the Revenue Department concerning the City’s longstanding billing crisis.
During this meeting, I was informed that a significant number of property owners were not on the City’s billing system, despite using municipal services.
A survey done by the City’s independent consultants, assisting in the resolution of our billing challenges, found that 1166 households, were not registered on the City’s billing system, although preliminary indications suggests they are utilising municipal services.
This reflects substantial potential loses to the City which have been going on for quite some time.
Sadly, for years, the City’s billing system has been plagued by mismanagement under past administrations and corruption by some City officials and contractors connected to departments and entities.
The City is already working to address these failings.
The City is conducting an audit of properties and meters, enforcing consequence and performance management for contractors and recruiting skilled and qualified professionals to address our challenges.
This also means ending wrongful terminations. For the City, even one wrongful termination is one too many.
To improve the accuracy of disconnections, the City has instituted a process of verification that will be done by the Group Head of Revenue Shared Services Centre (RSSC).
Once a list of accounts that are due for disconnections have been issued by the City’s Credit Management team, it will then be reviewed by the Director of Credit Management before the final list is issued for disconnections.
This will ensure that where disconnections occur, they happen properly.
The City has also established Billing Open Days to give ratepayers and property owners a platform to interact with revenue frontline staff, who assist to remedy or update municipal accounts.
The next Billing Open Day will be announced soon.
Another issue brought to my attention is the incidence of property owners who have no queries on their accounts, who should be paying for municipal services, have the means to do so, but who refuse to pay.
This must be condemned in the strongest terms. The City has taken the decision to institute credit management processes against these individuals and will pursue legal action where necessary.
The City will also make known the identity of these individuals whom continue to refuse to pay their municipal accounts.
These same individuals are those who invariably drive up the costs of municipal services for paying residents; this is not fair.
Payment for municipal services is not an option.
Each of us must do our part. I urge all those who are currently not paying for their services to do so.
I will continue to do all within my power to ensure that the billing crisis is finally resolved and that residents have the kind of service which they can be proud of.