Since announcing that he would personally take responsibility for Joburg’s billing crisis, Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba has put a few measures in place that will hopefully solve some of the problems residents have had for years.
Tanya Heydenrych, a media specialist in the mayor’s office, said the billing system is a work in progress.
“The mayor is working towards achieving the desired outcome – that of finding a permanent solution to the billing problem.”
The mayor will not be taking over any roles. He has asked for regular progress reports and is working very closely with Finance MMC Dr Rabelani Dagada. Going forward, however, the mayor has a set of plans he believes would fix the City’s billing situation.
“A service provider has been appointed and started work on a full diagnostic investigation into the root causes of all billing inaccuracies, from which the City will drive the solutions to remedy the billing system.”
The mayor also said appointments will be made at the 31 August council meeting to fill senior positions including the City’s Group Chief Financial Officer and Group Information Technology Officer. Other strategic positions will also be filled by the end of the year, he said.
“Since the new administration took office, work has continued earnestly to remedy all anomalies in the system. Going forward, the City will conduct a frequent audit of properties and meters, enforce consequence and performance management, recruit skilled and qualified professionals and implement the SAP [software program] system successfully.”
Plans are afoot to establish a new revenue nerve centre to make sure information is correct across all departments.
Finally, Mashaba said calls logged through the call centre should have a faster turnaround time, better feedback and customer care. Dagada said their vision still remains to deliver a financially sustainable and well-run City ‘in a caring and professional manner’.
In addition to technical interventions, the City now hosts billing open days. These open days are meant to resolve queries there and then, especially those that are older than 30 days.
“Billing open days are designed to rectify anomalies in municipal accounts and help the City improve its customer database,” Dagada said.
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