Kouga Municipality Billing Fiasco

The Kouga Municipality (KM) has sent out bills for January 2012 based on a 37 to 41 day month, as opposed to the usual 30 day period, the third time this has happened since July 2011. This is grossly unfair, if not downright illegal, since their charges and penalties are based on a sliding scale dependant on total usage in the billing period.  The vast majority of users will find themselves paying for electricity and water usage at a higher tariff than usual, because their total usage for the 41 day month is much higher than for a 30 day month. The highest tariff block costs R1.09/kwh, almost double the lowest tariff block of R0.58/kwh.

I tried to get comment from Carlien Burger, the acting Chief Financial Officer, and Sidney Fadi, the acting Municipal Manager at the Kouga Municipality. After 2 days of phoning and leaving messages, I was still unable to get hold of either official. I did manage to speak to Ria Van Heerden, in the collections department. She said that the long billing period was due to insufficient staff to read the meters over the holiday period. I am amazed that any organisation which spends 40% of its budget on staffing would ever dream of using a staff shortage as an excuse for anything. She also said that the KM could not do a general reversal of all the over-billed accounts, but that they had setup a system for giving credits to any ratepayer who queried their account personally at the KM offices.  It is not acceptable that the KM cannot produce correct accounts, and cannot even correct these accounts for all affected ratepayers when the errors are pointed out to them. Of course, it is not in the interests of the KM to correct these overcharges, which must have provided a welcome boost to the municipal income for January.

If your rates bill for January seems unusually high, you can claim the credit on your account which you are entitled to by visiting the KM offices in Da Gama Street and asking for Maureen Dodgen or Wilma Le Roux.  If you have any problems, contact Ria Van Heerden on 042 200 2125.

The KM MUST adopt an equitable and equal billing period policy in the future. Most businesses involved in a similar billing cycle adopt a 13 period per year approach, consisting of 12 periods of 28 days and 1 period of 29 days. The current arbitrary approach employed by the KM conflicts with the right to administrative fairness guaranteed by the South African constitution. The KM management must adopt a new approach before they lose yet another case in court.

Please remember the JBRA AGM on 22^nd February at 6pm at the Newton Hall. If you believe the JBRA should continue, please consider volunteering to sit on the committee.

Trevor Watkins

Chairman – Jeffreys Bay Residents Association.