Dear Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs,
The principle of not charging for services that have not been provided is enshrined in the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (MSA) and Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003 (MFMA). The MSA mandates providing services in a manner that ensures all residents have access to basic municipal services and are not billed for services that have not been rendered. The MFMA provides the accountability framework for municipal finances, ensuring funds are used appropriately and billing practices are fair and transparent again asserting that there should be good faith in the spirit of social development, righting the wrongs of the past, and championing fair and sustainable access to services.

The CoJ, through its policy of charging estimates that a beyond what clients use or can afford and then being opaque through its use of bullying tactics to force defaulters into blindly signing Acknowledgments of Debt where allocation of funds paid does not take reversal of incorrect and erroneous charges into account is engaging in unlawful measures and has contravened Chapter 7 of the Constitution. The CoJ administrators or officers have broken the law by charging for services that have been provided in the past and continues to do so in spite of past judgements. Is this because they mean to push residents toward indebtedness, default, sequestration, and ultimately, liquidation?The more families the CoJ bankrupts the more the CoJ sinks the South African economy or any hope of there being a middle class that can sustainably grow the economy and create jobs. This is a top heavy pyramid where a few a meant to pay for many who do not pay for services and it must stop and those officers making such policy decisions must be prosecuted because the funds that are paid for delinquent accounts are also disappearing from city coffers. We also lake sufficient regulatory framework for local governments to prevent corruption. Our current legal frameworks supporting local government provide for corruption better than they provide for efficient and effective revenue collection and service provision.

The CoJ Billing department is patently criminal in its conduct. The frameworks provisioned by the Municipal Systems Act and other acts provisioned by Chapter 7 have failed. There is a mass commission of fraud in the city. Some residents who have paid the 50% down payments have never seen that money appear on their accounts. Once you sign that acknowledgment of debt your money is gone but you estimates on your bill will keep escalating until you cannot afford to ever even make an arrangement. We are seeing a ticking time bomb reach the point of ignition and disaster. There is not only a glaring lack of legislative oversight, but the regulatory capacity in terms of the Legal Framework itself seems dangerously and wilfully inadequate. Who in parliament has seen cause to intervene in the gross criminality going on in the City of Johannesburg? You cannot, as a government, charge for services you are not providing. This is fraudulent and the officials are criminally liable as the measure amount to a general conspiracy to defraud residents.

Section 154 of the Municipal Systems act says that local governments, the COJ specifically, should put ever more advanced systems in place to better serve the people but why is the electronic billing that was put in place now defunct? Why can't billing be automated through smart systems that are 5G or HSDPA enabled? Why are we moving backwards in a city that is supposed to be world class?
What we need is for something to be done about the issue of illegal practices, including estimates that are charged after service disconnection. The CoJ billing ignores voluntarily submitted meter readings and digital metering preferring their regime of estimate, while metering contractors and suppliers continue to be rewarded for doing nothing The charging of estimates on accounts where services have been disconnected as a way of inflating bills, and the refusal by the City of Johannesburg to be transparent regarding how payments to rehabilitate accounts are allocated is suspect and contrary to the spirit of Chapter 7 of the constitution. Why are you destroying the City of Johannesburg by doing nothing as parliamentarians?
We need online platform that facilitate easy access to information, and dispute lodgement and resolution, and we also need transparent and accessible processes and systems that would aid the reversal of erroneous metering and bills. We would also like to see your investigation into the criminal practices and the failure of the frameworks provisioned by Chapter 7, the Systems Act, and MFMA, lead to the establishment of a better legal framework with regulations that prevent future abuse of the powers delegated to municipalities and their agencies, contractors, and departments.
There is a war on the people in our local municipality