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FOR WRITTENREPLY
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION NO 2017
Mrs J D Kilian (Cope) to ask the Minister for Cooperative Governance and
Traditional Affairs:
(1) Whether, he has been informed of the ongoing billing crisis in the
City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality; if not, what is the
position in this regard; if so, what interventions have been made;
(2) Whether his department has been informed of the cause for the billing
crisis; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are
the details;
(3) Whether (a) a certain household (details furnished) was served with a
final notice in the first week of August 2013 and (b) a certain
building (details furnished) was served with an incorrect bill; if so,
how was each matter resolved;
(4) Whether the said metro has implemented all the necessary measures to
restore the integrity of the billing system; if not, what corrective
measures will his department implement to assist the metro; if so, what
are the relevant details? NW2375E
Reply:
1) The department is aware that there were challenges with the billing
systems in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. These are
general challenges that municipalities face in their day to day
operations, and from time to time when they change their operating
systems and procedures.
The City of Johannesburg has implemented a system which is used by
other Metros like Cape Town and Tshwane. This system supports the
operational and reporting requirements of metros, the size of the City
of Johannesburg.
It should be noted that in 2001, the City unbundled its business and
established its municipal entities to focus on key services like
water, electricity, refuse, etc. In 2006, the City observed the
disintegration in the manner that it was servicing its customers. This
was so in that each service request could not be resolved at a single
point of entry, which resulted in customers being referred from pillar
to post. Consequently, a research study was conducted with a view to
acquire a system that would provide the municipality with a single
customer view of a customer. A new system was therefore procured to
integrate the different databases into a single system.
Data challenges were experienced during the migration process from the
legacy system. These challenges became more apparent once the new
system became operational in 2009. To improve the system, the City
embarked on the following initiatives:
⢠Continuous data clean up,
⢠Linkages with deeds office to improve property data; and
⢠Introduction of the revenue step change program to ensure integrity
of the metering data and standard operating procedures across the
value chain
These initiatives are yielding positive results with minor incidences
that cannot be referred to as a crisis. A customer centricity approach
has been introduced where regional centres are used as first
resolution centres where customers can walk in and get their queries
resolved.
(2) Refer to the response to question(1) above.
(3)(a) The credit control process begins from the time when a
municipal account becomes due for payment. At that stage a pre-
termination notice is issued to the customer in order to warn the
customer of the consequences of non-payment of current and outstanding
debt. It also serves to warn the customer that services may be
disconnected after 14 days if the account is not paid.
A pre-termination notice was indeed erroneously delivered to the
Mandela family residence on 2 August 2013 by an independent contractor
enlisted on a panel of service providers by the City of Johannesburg.
The notice was supposed to be delivered at a similar house number, but
in an adjacent suburb of Oaklands. It is regrettable that this
happened to the Mandela household. Necessary action has been taken
against the contractor in question.
(b) The account holder indicated that the address (Luthuli House) had
multiple accounts.Like many other customers, the customer requested
consolidation of its multiple accounts. The process of debt
consolidation into one account involves two independent processes,
namely, moving of services and the moving of balances. These are two
administrative processes that are not synchronized.
The request for a substantial credit balance to be transferred from
one account to another took longer than expected, due to the
delegation of authority attached to financial transactions of such
magnitude. It appeared that the account was thus in debt whilst
awaiting the credit transfer.
The Luthuli House account has always been very well maintained by the
customer and no concerns were raised on this account.
(4) Yes, the department is satisfied with the steps taken by the City of
Johannesburg to restore the integrity of the billing system, as per
the response to (1) above.
(5) Members would help us a lot if we all respect the integrity of all
three (3) spheres of government to handle problems they face,
especially metropolitan areas such as the City of Johannesburg.