City calls on Consumer Tribunal

Complaints received by the National Consumer Commission have been resolved or are being resolved, says the City, which has turned to the tribunal for clarity.
THE City has taken up compliance notices it has received with the National Consumer Tribunal, an independent body.

Some of the complaints relate to billing issuesSome of the complaints relate to billing issuesThe action comes after the National Consumer Commissioner issued the City with 45 compliance notices for failure to resolve consumer complains; but in response, the municipality took its objections to the tribunal.

Kgamanyane Maphologela, the spokesperson for Joburg’s revenue and customer relations department, said it would be “premature for the National Consumer Commission to attempt to fine it R15-million for not complying with the notices at this stage”.

Maphologela was adamant that the complaints for which the City had been issued compliance notices, had been resolved. “The City undertook and continues to undertake to resolve genuine complaints and where applicable find suitable solutions to consumer disputes. Consumers are advised to submit complaints to the City for resolution.”

He said there seemed to be a breakdown in communication between the City and the National Consumer Commission. “A large number of the compliance notices were relating to complaints already in the system which the City was resolving. These matters will now run their course through processes in terms of the Consumer Protection Act.”

The commission is a juristic body of the Consumer Protection Act, headed by a commissioner appointed by the minister of trade and industry. The Act is designed to promote an economic environment which supports consumer rights and responsibilities, as well as a fair, efficient and transparent marketplace for consumers and business.

Consumer protection
Its primary purpose is to prevent consumer harm and to enhance the economic welfare of consumers. The Act stipulates that consumers are the backbone of economic growth, and that well-informed consumers stimulate innovation, better quality products and services, and competitive prices. Given this, they drive competitiveness.

The City believes the commission may have acted before referring to the facts of the matter and the legal framework governing local government, “hence the objection to National Consumer Tribunal”.

Under the Act, the commission can investigate consumer complaints and the National Consumer Tribunal can adjudicate over violations of the Act. The courts adjudicate on all contractual matters.

In light of the communication breakdown between the City and the commission, Maphologela said, a meeting had been scheduled in an attempt to streamline processes and build co-operation.

Since April, the City had received about 276 complaints from the National Consumer Commission. Of these, 154 had been resolved and about 113 were still pending, Maphologela said. About nine complaints were “closed due to insufficient information”.

“In some of the outstanding matters, for example there [are] no account numbers accompanying the complainant.”

Billing
Not all the complaints received related to the billing system or wrong bills. “Some relate to valuation, rates, public liability, strikes etc”. He noted that all queries relating to billing were under investigation and were being “corrected where necessary”.

“The City is placing on record that it never refunded R7-million to any consumer as claimed in media reports. An incorrect reading of a meter resulted in a bill of approximately R7-million being received by the consumer.”

At the time of the media reports, the complaint was being resolved and “was, in fact, finalised by means of a reversal of the incorrect billing [and] not a refund as incorrectly claimed”.

Through its department of revenue and customer relations management, the City collects revenue from its customers, which is used to run the municipality. Every month, the City sends out over a million accounts to its residents, charging them for electricity and water supplies, for waste collection and for property rates.

Recently, the City launched Project Phakama to streamline and improve revenue collection. There has been a spate of complaints of irregularities in its billing system, and the City is working to ensure that customers receive accurate billings for rates and services, as well as improve the quality of customer service.

Maphologela said the turnaround strategy should be “weighed against the City’s size of customers who are approximately 1,1 million”.