Lobby for change to stop Joburg billing crisis: iLIVE

Today’s editorial, ‘Trial and error in Joburg’ gets straight to the point as far as the Joburg billing crisis and the city’s recent cut-off campaign is concerned.

While Thursday’s High Court ruling will prevent a repeat of last year’s debacle, which saw the services of 41,000 account holders being cut off just before Christmas, it fails to go to the heart of the issue.

The fact is that the city’s administration has proved beyond doubt that it is unable to manage billing and credit control, and as long as we leave this and other key functions in the hands of politicians, there can – and will be – no relief for the city’s beleaguered residents.

What the billing crisis is costing us

The failed centralisation of billing has already cost R1bn in public funds, if all of the ‘fixes’ to the much-vaunted Project Phakama are taken into account.  Despite this, the city’s debtors’ book is apparently close to R15bn at the moment, and the administration reported an 'income deficit' of R5.69bn for Q1 Y2012. And this is without taking into account the loss of productivity being caused by the billing crisis, both within the city’s administration and in the private sector.

Also, while the debtors’ book is probably wildly inflated due to on-going overbilling, it’s very likely that it’s being used to secure short-term loans at high interest rates. After all, the city has claimed that its cash flow situation improved during Q1 and there’s only one way it could have achieved this in light of its reported income deficit – by digging us all into an ever-deeper hole of debt.

More of the same isn’t going to work

It’s simply lunacy to continue trying the same approach to the problem over and over again, and expecting a different result.

After all, it’s abundantly clear that every administrative option has been exhausted – and nothing has been resolved. Highlighting the nature and extent of the problem isn't working;

Appealing to government at local, provincial and national level isn't working; asking for the Public Protector's intervention isn't working;

Logging complaints with the National Consumer Commission isn't working;

Appealing to the Human Rights Commission for protection in terms of the Bill of Rights isn’t working;

Laying charges against the executive for violations of the Municipal Systems Act isn’t working;

Even the 65 compliance notices issued by the NCC for violations of the Consumer Protection Act seem to have disappeared into thin air.

Viable alternatives

It’s time to start looking at viable alternatives – and for the city’s residents to start lobbying for a change in system.

Wendy Davidson of NORFED (Northern Federation of Ratepayers) has done extensive research in this area, specifically with regard to electricity supply, metering and billing.

What she has found is that about 40% of the bulk electricity supply being purchased from Eskom by the City of Joburg is currently being ‘lost’.

This means it is either not being billed for, or that charges for electricity are not being recovered for one reason or another. Compounded by other aspects of the billing crisis, this is a recipe for financial, infrastructural and service delivery disaster.

To put it plainly, the city has now been constrained from acting beyond the scope of the law in order to recover alleged arrears.

It can only exercise the credit control measures allowed for in the Acts governing local government if it can (a) supply accurate bills and (b) resolve legitimate billing disputes. It is clear that it can do neither, and we are therefore at a stalemate.

Worse still, the cost of this state of affairs is enormous. This is evident not only from our ever-increasing electricity tariffs, but also from the city’s failure to maintain and expand the electricity grid due to lack of adequate funding. It is also evident from the rising cost of servicing the city’s debt.

Outsource metering and billing

There is simply no other solution but to outsource metering and billing to reliable suppliers which can be held to account in terms of pre-defined service level agreements. And the good news is that this would be incredibly easy to do.

Davidson’s research has shown that the city could be converted to an independently-managed smart metering system within a year. All this would involve is the installation of a remote metering device a little bigger than a cell phone at each local electricity supply box.

This could be done in half an hour, and the households drawing power from that box could then immediately monitor their electricity usage and billing online – in real time.

The cost of this minor conversion could be built into the tariff structure very easily and, amongst other things, would make collection of legitimate arrears almost fool-proof.

Not only that, but the smart metering devices are tamper-proof, and they would immediately eliminate the huge problem of illegal connections.

Even better, smart metering would eliminate the need for a demand-side management levy – and service fees could easily be ring-fenced to fund maintenance and development.

It’s up to residents to lobby for change

The bottom line is that there’s a viable and easily-implementable alternative to the current billing system – it’s just up to residents to start lobbying for a changeover.

We need an alternative system and a different billing methodology, because we’re never going to get out of this mess as long as the same people are left holding the reins ...