Senior officials at eThekwini Municipality, led by City Manager Musa Mbhele, pictured, met with the eThekwini Ratepayers Protest Movement (ERPM) on Friday January 5, to discuss the water billing adjustment process.
eThekwini city manager Musa Mbhele met with the eThekwini Ratepayers Protest Movement (ERPM) to discuss the water billing adjustment process. The stakeholder engagement was held at the Durban City Hall on Friday January 5, to resolve concerns of ratepayers affected by the water billing adjustment.
The meeting was called after the municipality issued a statement outlining its intention to correct the 6 kilolitres of free basic water which had been incorrectly applied to consumers whose properties were valued above the R250 000 threshold. The billing adjustment affects less than 10% of the ratepayers in the city, the municipality said.
Mr Mbhele said to correct this technical error, the municipality proposed capping the amount payable by affected ratepayers to accommodate those who were not able to pay the full amount.
“This means we will ringfence the debt and not allow any interest to accrue, and no services will be cut off due to the billing adjustment provided acknowledgement of debt has been signed,” he said.
“We will further allow ratepayers to settle the debt over 36 months or until the full amount is paid if the amount due is more than the average of approximately R6 000. We will standardise the debt which means that those affected will pay an additional R180 per month instead of the full amount now,” said Mr Mbhele.
Mr Mbhele apologised for the inconvenience caused by the technical error, adding that it was important to engage with stakeholders regarding the issue. He added that the municipality dealt with over 550 000 bills every month and that such errors may occur.
Mr Mbhele said city policy allowed it to backdate charges to correct such errors. At the end of the engagement, both parties agreed to work together to develop a way forward and it was also agreed that abnormal cases (e.g. where the amount due is more than the average of R6 000 or calculations errors) raised by ERPM would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In addition, it was agreed that ERPM would be consulted on the Indigent Policy as part of the budget consultation before the end of March.
Chairperson of ERPM Asad Gaffer, said they appreciated the effort to amicably discuss solutions and acknowledged that the city needed to recoup the money as it needed revenue to function.
He, however, raised serious concerns about how residents are being treated at Sizakala Customer Care Centres and Mr Mbhele responded that these complaints would be investigated and dealt with.
“We (ERPM) together with city officials expressed a need to have regular meetings, dialogue and better communication to foster a better working relationship to improve service delivery in the city for all eThekwini residents,” said Mr Gaffer.