Dozens of ratepayers turned up at the Buffalo City Metro’s finance office on Saturday to inquire about incorrect water billing.
They were responding to a call by the municipality in its “Tell Us, Sixelele Thetha Nathi” campaign aimed at resolving inquiries ratepayers might have.
The Dispatch reported earlier in 2023 that the municipality had set up a team that would be responsible for probing problems faced by the BCM.
Former city finance services mayoral committee member Sakhumzi Caga promised there would be consequences for officials responsible for the incorrect billing issue plaguing the metro.
In an effort to attend to the queries of the residents, the metro introduced the campaign to reach out to people.
Complaints included the partial blocking of prepaid meters, ageing infrastructure and theft.
Among the residents at the meeting on Saturday were Dexter Pretorius and his wife Charise.
Dexter said they had been having billing problems for the past five years and had attempted to get the municipality to resolve the matter.
“Initially I paid R2,800,” he said. “It escalated to R4,200 and then went up to R30,000.
“We get the same story that we need to get a plumber’s report and up to this point we owe R120,000 and no-one wants to assist us.
“We have been going up and down trying to find a solution.
“Since they are having this open day, we are coming again.
“My wife has been going to the doctor and we suspect it is stress. We don’t sleep and we are hardly functioning well.
“The Buffalo City Metro is failing.”
Yamkela Damba from Gonubie also came to inquire about his bill.
Damba said they settled the rates bill and had later been notified that they owed the municipality.
“We initially owed about R90,000 and they gave us a discount of R30,000 and we paid off our debt.
“Later on we received a new statement saying we were owing
“The problem is I cannot pinpoint what the issue is.
“It could they are doubling billing in terms of water and since there is a new system of the meters it is difficult to say who is responsible.”
Finance MMC Noma-Africa Maxongo said the municipality was working hard to ensure the errors were corrected.
Maxongo said about 6% of the ratepayers in BCM had billing challenges.
“This is something we don’t pride ourselves in.
“The campaign is a call-out to those who are having challenges.
“We have a full staff responsible for meter readers, queries resolution centres and many more.
“We can’t do any payments because we are focusing on the queries, because we need to deal with them on a merit basis.”
She said many of the people who came had water-related problems.
“We are going to listen to the water challenges and work with the water services to find resolution.
“The main issues we have dealt with those of vandalism and theft.
“We want [ratepayers] to tell us as soon as they can so they do not wait for a year to come up.”
Maxongo said the campaign would next visit Gonubie and Beacon Bay.
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