According to the City of Joburg the billing query backlog has been cleared and the only outstanding queries are those less than 30 days.
The City said it made “dramatic improvements in resolving billing queries from customers and establishing systems to maintain the resolution of queries within an acceptable timeframe.”
In November 2011 the city committed to a June 30 deadline and said the backlog of billing queries would be cleared by then.
This was in line with the City’s Roadmap for Revenue and Billing to improve its customer service and integrity of statements sent to customers.
In a statement the city said the backlog of customer queries was ring-fenced in November 2011 and a dedicated backlog-clearing team was established to address customer queries.
“In line with the set target, the City has successfully resolved the backlog but still have outstanding complex issues to finalise in the areas like deceased estates,” said Chief Operations Officer (COO)
Gerald Dumas.
Yet on Mobilitate there is irrefutable proof that this is not the case with close to 800 billing issues that are still open and most of them are 90 days and older.
“This certainly isn’t our experience at JAG either, and the city’s claims – as always – simply aren’t verifiable. As concerning, new billing problems seem to be arising more quickly than others are being resolved, which indicates that the systemic problems behind the billing crisis haven’t been properly addressed,” said Lee Cahill from the Joburg Advocacy Group.
“Add to that the many disputes over the property valuations on the most recent Supplementary Valuation Roll, and the very serious billing problems arising from the re-classification of many agricultural holdings in the north west of the city as residential properties, and it’s our feeling that the situation is worsening, not improving.”
Overall it has been estimated that the backlog consisted of close to 30 000 billing queries.
June Broadfoot, a Mobilitate member from Rosebank, has been overcharged by R61 943.00.
This amount has been accumulating since October 2010 because of refuse bin overcharges and incorrect electricity and water meter readings.
Her query has still not been resolved.
According to Dumas processes have, however, been put in place and adequate resources allocated to identify and timeously deal with any additional complex issues which may as yet not been resolved.
The specialised backlog clearing team ass now been decentralised and deployed to call centres and regional customer service centres, to further “enhance the capability to resolve current queries quicker.”
If your query has not been resolved please report it here.
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