Mayor addresses billing issues in eThekwini

The eThekwini Municipality has announced the procurement of 14,000 electricity meters designed to ensure accurate billing for residents, amidst widespread concerns over estimated bills.

Speaking to the media, Mayor Cyril Xaba said the municipality is committed to ensuring residents are billed accurately for the services they use monthly. However, the unavailability of electricity meters made it difficult, leading to estimated bills being sent out to customers. 

“Following a drastic resolution we took at our strategic planning session earlier this year regarding the procurement of electricity meters, I am pleased to report that a total of 14,000 electricity meters have been received for installation to various properties within the municipality,” Xaba said. 

“We are expecting additional meters in the course of the financial year so that we can adequately address critical service challenges and improve revenue collection.” 

Xaba explained that this will expedite the issuance of revenue clearance certificates, the resolution of backlogs in metering for new housing developments, seamless transitions from credit to prepaid meters, the efficient replacement of faulty and bypassed meters, and the swift processing of new service applications.  

“We must indicate that, as a city, we have significantly reduced the challenge of estimated bills, with only 10% of water bills being estimated,” Xaba said. 

On electricity, Xaba said the City was currently estimating 22% but with the delivery of new meters, this challenge would be the past. 

Xaba further explained that since the collapse of the postal services, they had to create alternative ways to communicate with residents. They use email for those who provided their email addresses, and have also introduced a mobile app. These are to aid in providing monthly information on consumption. 

He said that when there is a dispute, the municipality estimates consumption until the dispute has been resolved. 

Xaba also said that if municipal officials are unable to access a property due to locked gates, dogs, or resident's fears, they cannot collect accurate billing information. This issue, common in suburbs, results in a lack of statistics and inaccurate billing. 

He said that for properties without meters, where new connections are requested for residential or business use, the municipality will connect the meters. Once a meter is installed, they will monitor consumption for the first three months, then average it to determine monthly consumption from the connection date. This allows the municipality to accurately estimate the consumers’ outstanding balance. Individuals who are not paying are aware that upon connection, their consumption will be backdated using this average monthly consumption, he said.

Sipho Cele, executive director in the city manager’s office, said that a key component of the turnaround strategy for trading services involves leveraging available technology to minimise human intervention. To this end, they are actively investigating various smart metering options.

He said the meters they are deploying are designed to accommodate future technological upgrades. This will allow them to integrate new technology later, thereby minimising human involvement. He said issues like locked houses and inaccessible meters will be significantly reduced.

“Technology will assist us with having accurate readings on a real-time basis, as well as be able to get as many people into the net as we possibly can,” Cele said. 

thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za