The City of Johannesburg’s MMC for Finance, Dr Rabelani Dagada, reassured that he is going nowhere and that the billing crisis is well on its way to recovery.
This after claims that the MMC would be removed. Instead, Dagada said he still remains a true believer in Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba’s vision.
“It should be duly noted that under my stewardship of the City’s finances, we’ve attained many milestones, for which I’m grateful to the [mayor] for his support and guidance,” he said.
Dagada said the revenue department was able to reduce open billing queries from 200 000 when taking office, down to its current 16 000.
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“Extensive analysis of the billing crisis indicates that over 65 per cent of the City’s queries are related to electricity and water meter services. I believe that a long-lasting solution will be to improve the number of actual readings on all metered services. The City aims to reduce estimations significantly and improve the number of actual readings to 95 per cent, thereby reducing billing queries by 90 per cent.”
The next eight months could see a change in the billing tide if the MMC’s goals are realised.
He hopes that cleansing customer data, supervising the actual reading of meters and implementing quality control measures, improving the billing value chain between various departments and entities, training employees in walk-in centres and deploying better technology will improve the overall system.
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“As long as I am still an MMC for Finance in the City of Johannesburg, I will continue to pay attention to resolving the billing crisis, increasing revenue collection, and turning Joburg into a tech-savvy city.”
Regional billing open days were also meant to help solve the crisis. These open days see various departments like City Power, Johannesburg Water and the revenue department working together at a venue, assisting customers who want to resolve their queries. The first open day was held on 12 August and a second scheduled for September. The second day was postponed because of a work stoppage by department employees seemingly in solidarity with 13 of their colleagues who were arrested on charges of fraud, theft and corruption. A second open day has not yet been announced.
