A rather amazing phenomenon, when it comes to electricity or water cut-offs for late payments to the cities' billing departments, is how often they occur on a late Friday afternoon. This almost predictable occurrence of cut-offs is sure to coincide with the departure of officials for the weekend away from their desks and precludes the affected parties from having their electricity or water reconnected for a few days at least.
Often notices of the proposed cut-offs do not happen, so persons are unable to get their payments made to prevent not only an inconvenience, but if anyone affected is on life-support necessitating uninterrupted electricity supply their very lives are at risk be they elderly, tiny babies or persons with serious medical conditions.
At the bottom of each statement for service delivery from entities such as City Power and Joburg Water there is a fine line, small-print notice that states that the City "MAY" inform its customers of intended disconnections.
Even if an account is less than 30 days overdue, persons have received letters of "Final Demand:, I being one of them!
This certainly does not generate goodwill amongst the paying customers that the City depends upon, especially in the light of the R11 billion in unpaid debts for services that the City had to write off in two years recently.
Accountability in the office of those keeping track of defaulters allowed this situation to escalate to the point where businesses and individuals owed the City for their electricity and water hundreds of thousands of rands which finally were irrecoverable, with no timeous cut-offs, one may add.
It appears that the steady, reliable homeowners in the suburbs are the targets of instant cash recovery with an added bonus of "disconnection" and "reconnection" charges of around R1300 per cut-off, apparently paid to the "Contractors" who do this rather mean job.
Generally, homeowners or residents do not even get to see the aforementioned "Contractor" and the charge for this dubious service merely appears on the next monthly service statement.
To dispute this added cost to the monthly account falls ultimately on deaf ears.
What is of obvious concern is that for each disconnection or reconnection there is a charge which a "Contractor" garners and questions or corruption could easily fly around.
The more disconnections/reconnection's carried out, the More the "Contractor" will receive.
One need not be a rocket scientist to work out the economic benefits to "Contractors" and the economic burden placed o the "Customer"
These "Contractors" are appearing to be like "bounty hunters" and the hunted are the ordinary citizens delivered by the City to the residents.
It is high time that persons passing on the names of customers targeted for cut-offs to "Contractors" come under scrutiny. Responsible decisions, proper business ethic, and integrity are necessary when it comes to debt recovery in a concern as large as the City of Johannesburg's billing department.
Naturally, if the customer receives delivery of water and electricity based on a flat rate payment of about R75 per month, then there will be no cut-offs, irrespective if the consumption is ten times that for which was paid, and that the several shacks in the back of the house are also drawing off water and electricity at an equivalent level to say the least, from the one source.
This disconnection/reconnection fee is seen as punitive and certainly excessive. No one has broken the law by having a late payment or an arrears account due to a dispute with the billing department of the City regarding either water or electricity consumption. Cases regarding the activities of the City have been taken to court and the customers have won cases based on an outcome that is illegal to cut off services in the way mentioned above.
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