Padlock it and see what they do

RH Withers-Lancashire writes:

Did you know that the City of Johannesburg (CoJ), especially Joburg Water, are operating a “secret service”?

When they are going to cut your water supply they don’t tell you about it. The Head Corporal creeps up and dismantles the water meter by removing a necessary part, slinks back to his car. I’m sure that it other civilised countries thye knock on your door and tell you what is going to happen. But not CoJ!

I saw the man in a black uniform walking away from my house and wondered who he was. Then in our gate there was a folded page informing us that the water at (address withheld) was to be cut due to non-payment of a R112 000 account (heaven only knows how he managed to rev up our account of that amount).

Now the crux of the joke is that my house has the same number as the account holder, but my home is in a different street!

So now you phone the “call centre”. Fifteen minutes of explaining and as soon as they’re going to tell you what to do, the phone goes dead!

So you phone again — a different lady — explain again — same result. This happened five times!

You can speak to God, all day every day, but you can’t find anyone who can actually help you.

It took about sixteen phone calls before the water was turned on, and it took three days for them to rectify their mistake.

Again, the Head Corporal slyly crept up to the house (we saw him) and slipped the missing piece back into the water meter. I’ve tried to speak to him but he was back in his car before we could.

I suggest that a steel strap is welded around the meter and padlocked so that no one can remove the essential pieces! You will have to be asked to remove the padlock and steel strap before they can proceed.

The CoJ brand states “A world-class African city”. Should that not read “Just another African city”?