City asks customers to sign up for e-Services due to postal delivery issues
The city is quite worried about how many ratepayers and other service customers are receiving their bills due to the ongoing post office strike, so customers are encouraged to sign up for the e-Services option to get their Metro bills emailed to them.
Have you been experiencing delays in receiving your post lately? The city is quite worried about how many ratepayers and other service customers are receiving their bills due to an ongoing post office strike.
Residents in Durban have been advised by the city to register on e-Services so that they can receive their bills via email.
Khanyi Gama, Deputy Head of Customer Services explained: “We utilise the Post Office to get our bills to our customers. We acknowledge that customers have not received their monthly bill and we urge them to register on e-Services as it is fast, efficient, paperless and convenient.”
“Customers can contact the municipality if they require a copy of their bill,” said Gama.
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Customers have complained their post has not been delivered lately.
Nobuhle Njapha from the SA Post Office explained: “Delivery of eThekwini Municipality bills is delayed by the industrial action taking place in KwaZulu-Natal. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
On Wednesday, 18 July, a resolution was reached effectively ending the strike as of today, Thursday, 19 July, 2018. According to reports from stakeholders Sapo and the Communication Workers Union‚ Democratic Postal Workers Union and the SA Postal Workers Union reached a salary agreement which will see Sapo receive a 6.5% salary increase‚ backdated to April 1, as well as an increase in working hours each week from 21.5 to 27.5 hours for permanent part-time employees.
“Five hundred of these positions are earmarked to be phased in as permanent full-time employees in due course‚” Sapo said.
Despite the end of striking among postal workers, the backlog of undelivered post may take some time to clear. Njapha said that unprocessed mail has accumulated in sorting centres and will take roughly 20 work days to be processed.
The City’s e-Services portal offers a variety of features which includes the updating of account information and the delivery of accounts to linked email addresses. However in the past there have been some issues with the security of customer’s details through the portal.
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In 2016, our sister publication, the Berea Mail, reported the city shut down its e-Services website after reports of a possible hack. This incident led to many customers deciding to opt out of the service due to worries about their data security.
Customers can register on e-Services at https://eservices.durban.gov.za/v2/ and may also log a query at https://correspondence.durban.gov.za:200/
UPDATE: This article was amended on Thursday morning, 19 July, 2018 at 8.30am to reflect updated information that the industrial action had been resolved ending the strike after an announcement made on Wednesday evening.
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