Media the new municipality?

A resident was allegedly told she should work through the Record in order to sort her smart meter issues out, instead of the municipality.

Landlord of a block of flats in Roodepoort West, Louise Jooste, was very upset when she understood from one of the customer service officers in the walk-in centre in Roodepoort City Hall that she’ll have to involve the Record, and approached the Caxton West Rand office immediately. This confusion slipped in yesterday afternoon, 2 February, when Jooste went to query and pay the electricity bills of her five tenants, of which the tenants in two of the flats were allegedly forced to have smart meters installed. Since the installation of the smart meters, statements from CoJ have been irregular; on every statement the usage reflected is for a different period (some not even three weeks, others over 40 days) and usage has allegedly increased with high irregularity, where a tenant who usually uses about R350 worth of electricity recently got billed for R1 600. The other tenant, who averages on R1 800 per month, was billed for R4 300.

At the walk-in centre, where Jooste usually acts as the middle man between her tenants and the municipality, she went to report it on Tuesday. The officer who helped her asked her to go back home and snap photos of the two meters that are allegedly faulty. As an example, he showed her such a photo that happened to have the Roodepoort Record logo on it. It is believed it had to do with a previous article placed.

The Record joined Jooste in visiting the walk-in centre this [Wednesday] morning, 3 February. The same officer explained what he meant, without knowing the media was present. Subsequently, the details of her query, a recent account and photos of the smart meter were emailed to him.

According to Yolande Janse van Rensburg and Cecile Retief who work in Citizen Relationship and Urban Management for Region C of CoJ, officers who attempt to resolve billing queries may ask for photographs of the meter to speed up the process.

“We do have meter readers in place, but asking for a photo will forego having a meter reader summoned to the residence, which feeds the information into the system faster, hopefully to resolve the query faster,” Van Rensburg explained.

“It is, however, not up to local media or any third party to supply the municipality with that information, the onus remains with the customer him or herself.”

Retief reiterated that municipal queries of whatever nature should first and foremost be logged with the Joburg Connect call centre and a reference number received, before residents attempt to follow up on issues with the various departments.

“Nobody in council can or will do anything for a customer without having that reference number,” she told the Record.

She recommends if any query exists it be reported to Joburg Connect as soon as possible. Thereafter, give the query a few hours and revisit the issue with the relevant department, quoting the reference number. Lately, she says Region C offices have been plagued by customers attempting to jump the queue because they believe their contacts in the municipality can solve an issue faster.

“A set system is in place for a reason, keeping the query traceable. We don’t entertain people attempting to jump the queue any longer.”

Joburg Connect can be reached on 0860 JOBURG or 0860 56 28 74.

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