Johannesburg -The City of Johannesburg says it is turning the tide on its billing challenges and is on track to meet the June deadline to clear all billing related queries that pre-date the end of October 2011.
This emerged after Monday's meeting between the Deputy Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Obed Bapela and the executive council of the city.
Bapela said the Presidential Hotline received over 8 000 queries on the Johannesburg billing system and 5 000 of these have been attended to by the city. Most of these queries were made last year.
Most of the cases which were reported to the hotline, Bapela said, involved the finalisation of the estates of the deceased, cut-offs and clearance certificates, while others were disputing the amounts they have to pay.
"Government decided that it is no longer business as usual," said Bapela, adding that the task team set up to deal with the matter was working expeditiously to resolve the issue.
The City's MMC for Finance, Geoffrey Makhubo, said they have made progress since the launch of the Revenue and Billing Roadmap in November last year.
The main objectives of the 19-month road map include improving the accuracy of billing and customer data integrity; enhancement of the city's customer engagement model; to ensure better responsiveness; the eradication of property change-of-ownership backlogs and the implementation of a 'standard of service charter' for customers.
Currently, he said there were about 100 000 queries relating to billing issues. Of these, 66 000 date back from the end of October last year, while about 35 000 where lodged from November last year - as indicated by data as of 13 March.
Makhubo said they were on track to meet the June deadline, which will also see the city providing consistent customer information, resolving queries, making arrangements to settle outstanding debt and maintaining the accuracy of bills.
He hoped that they would also be able to sort out new issues within 30 days - provided there were no external factors.
He said with the help of the new ITC system, they would be able to look at historical problems and how to deal with these.
Bapela said he was happy with the city's plan to fix the billing situation. His office will be visiting other municipalities around the country experiencing problems.
