Johannesburg Implements Billing Regionalisation

From February 1, Joburg ratepayers will be able to choose which day of the month they'd like to pay their municipal accounts.

City spokesperson Kgamanyane Maphologela says the project, which is called "billing regionalisation", will see the city streamlining its billing operations which will result in improved billing accuracy, the ability of customers to choose their due dates, regional meter reading, reduced long estimate billing and audit queries, limited collection dates and informed reporting per region to afford improvement and problem solving.

Maphologela says the billing regionalisation project means customers will be billed according to the region they live in.

It also means customers will know exactly when the city is coming to their area to read their meters.

"We want to improve customers experience and our own efficiency. The current billing schedule is open all working days of the month, consisting of 21 portions.

"Each portion caters for each regional township, which strains the physical meter reading and that impacts on billing accuracy.

"We want to reduce the number of portions, focus on each region and improve the quality of meter reading," says Maphologela.

Once the system goes online, customers will have the freedom to choose due dates between the 15th and 28th of every month. If they dont, their due date will default to 15 days after billing.

Maphologela says another advantage of the project is that customers will know exactly which region their suburb falls under and be able to track the dates when the meter readers will visit them by consulting the citys website.

The first phase of the project will start in regions A (Midrand), B (Randburg, Northcliff, Rosebank), C (Roodepoort) and E (Sandton). The other regions D (Soweto), F (Inner-city) and G (Lenasia, Ennerdale) will be launched in May next year.

Customers wishing to choose their due dates can do so by visiting any of the citys customer services centres, phoning the call centre at 0860 Joburg (562 874) or emailing duedates-AT-joburg.org-DOT-za.

The meter reading and billing schedules can be obtained by visiting www.joburg.org.za.

Article courtesy of The Star