Hundreds of residents and business owners braved the cold and rain as they visited Region A Customer Service Centre at 300, 15th Road Randjespark, Midrand, in a bid to resolve their longstanding billing queries on Saturday, 9 April.
Billing Open Days, which will be held in other regions in the coming months, are the City’s response to get the basics right by attending to the billing queries so that customers can be correctly billed.
City Power, Pikitup and Joburg Water were among municipal-owned entities and City departments that had set up stalls to allow residents, who had queries with the respective entities, to lodge their complaints.
Zanoxolo Mbingeleli, the Acting Assistant Director for Revenue in Region A, said the City’s decision to organise Open Days, is a response to customers’ requests as they couldn’t visit customer service centres during normal working hours during the week, and who have longstanding billing queries that need them to visit walk-in centres.
“One of the most crucial things about these Open Days is the fact that we resolve queries on the spot. We dispatch a meter reader to go with the customer to read the meter and return to capture the correct readings and reverse the estimates immediately,” said Mbingeleli.
He said other City departments and entities like City Power assisted customers to link prepaid meter so that the City doesn’t bill them for electricity when they are on prepaid and Joburg Water also assisted to link meters that are not linked to the customers’ accounts.
“We also have Evaluations department that is assisting us to convert our category customers, which could be from vacant land to residential or business to residential or vice versa,” he said.
“We also have Extended Social Package (ESP) which is assisting residents to qualify to get free 8 kilo litres of water, debt rehabilitation that is done by the customer services to assist customers. They take applications for customers who would like to apply for the programme, rates department that is handling rates related queries, refunds department that is dealing with refunds, credit management that is assisting if a disconnected customer pays now we dispatch reconnection team to go and reconnect the customer immediately, and legal department which is assisting customers that wish to make arrangements on their accounts,” said Mbingeleli.
Property owner Sheila Bath from Chartwell near Fourways was all smiles after her query was finally resolved. “Since 2005 after I subdivided my property I’ve been incorrectly billed sometimes being charged for sewer and we don’t have a sewer line in Chartwell. We use sceptic tanks and I have been to Braamfontein and the last time I went there I got mugged. I’ve been to Randburg and Waterfall that’s where I was advised to come to the open day and I am happy to say my problem has been resolved,” she said.
A relieved Ben Chinyanga from Mayibuye was also assisted as he needed to consolidate his account to get only one bill from the City.
Riverside property owner Mary Maaka, who had a billing query since 2019, was delighted that actually the City owes her after she was incorrectly billed and overcharged. She said she couldn’t go to the customer service centre as she works during week.
Written By Luyanda Lunika
11/04/2022