Duplicate charges on accounts yet another mistake

Date: 14 September 2019 By: Andries van Zyl

The Makhado Municipality’s woes seem to have no end when it comes to problems within their accounts department; their latest “error” is duplicated charges on residents’ monthly accounts.

The past couple of weeks, the Zoutpansberger has been inundated with calls from residents complaining about duplicate basic electricity charges on their monthly accounts for August. This has ranged from two or three duplicate amounts on some accounts, to between five and eight duplicate charges with the same source code on others.

The Makhado Municipality was asked if it was aware of the problem. In response, municipal spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi confirmed that the duplicate charges were in fact a mistake. He explained that the problem was caused when, instead of charging one basic electricity charge, the municipality duplicated the charge for each meter and each phase. “For example, single phase would be charged once and a three-phase meter would be charged three times,” said Bobodi. One resident said his basic electricity charge had been duplicated eight times, as he has more than one meter.

Based on feedback received from all the people who had complained to the Zoutpansberger, the municipality seemingly had no problem reversing all the duplicated charges. Bobodi also confirmed that all these duplicated charges had been reversed. “All the affected customers are paying their usual bills, exclusive of the errors,” said Bobodi. He added that 1 335 accounts had been affected and that the errors had only occurred on these accounts for the month of August.

The municipality’s latest error on some consumers’ August accounts is but one of several “mistakes” the past year.

In November 2018, the Zoutpansberger reported on how the municipality had stopped charging property rates on thousands of accounts. The municipality explained at that time that the mistake had been caused by “technical problems” when they had uploaded the new 2018 valuation roll (which had come into effect on 1 July) onto their system. In total, 9 472 local taxpayers were not billed for property rates from 1 July to November last year because of the mistake. This resulted in these residents’ receiving a nasty Christmas surprise of having to repay all arrears property rates. However, these consumers received some good news as the municipality indicated that they could make arrangements for paying off their outstanding debt.

In December, the Zoutpansberger reported on yet another “mistake” on local taxpayers’ monthly municipal accounts. This time around, the municipality had apparently calculated residents’ monthly property rates over an 11-month period and not a 12-month period on the November account. Another discrepancy on the November account was the amount of the rebate owners of residential properties qualify for. Homeowners qualify for an annual R26 137.20 rebate on their total property value. Yet, somehow, the municipality had lowered this amount to R24 565. At the time, Bobodi said that all the affected accounts were to be reconciled to the overall 12 months of billing in a year. The same reconciliation, he said, was targeted at correcting the residential discount amount from R24 565 to R26 137.20.

People make mistakes. Many residents are, however, questioning the municipal accounts department’s competency. Regarding this, Bobodi was very clear. “We have no challenges with regard to the qualifications of our personnel,” said Bobodi.

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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