Durban - More than 65 000 meters across eThekwini Municipality have not been read for more than a year.
Opposition parties said some residents who had been paying estimated bills had found themselves owing large amounts when their meters were read.
A report tabled before the municipality’s finance committee recently detailed the extent of the problem when it came to reading water and electricity meters.
It showed that there were more than 12 000 electricity meters and 53 341 water meters that had not been read for 365 days, with the result being that bills were being estimated for extended periods. This means that these customers are not paying the correct amounts monthly, which impacts on the City’s ability to collect for the services.
The finance committee report showed that in December there were 112 000 electricity meters that were not read, and 12 813 had not been read for a year.
“This indicates that 12 813 customers have been receiving estimated bills for a year,” the report said.
In December 2022, there were 215 058 water meters that had not been read, and 53 341 had not been read for a year.
It said such matters were further complicated if a customer had a water leak while the municipality continued to estimate consumption. These customers or those with lower estimated consumption would be saddled with higher bills when the actual consumption was read.
In response to this, the City is looking at centralising the control and billing for the meters.
Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said the issue of reading meters was a serious concern and a violation of governing regulations.
He said the revenue unit could soon take control of the City’s meters in an effort to ensure they were read and the residents were billed for the services they had consumed.
“There is a migration of meter reading from departments to revenue services, so that the service is centralised,” he said, adding that because the revenue unit controlled the system of billing, it would be better if they managed the entire system rather than having it done separately (by departments in silos).
“We have been experiencing the challenge of not reading the meters, as expected. It (not reading meters) can’t exceed six months, as the law stipulates that if we fail to read, we can’t go beyond six months,” he said.
The Mercury reported on the problem last year, revealing the reasons the City had provided for unread meters.
At the time, it was said some of the meters were in areas that were hard to reach, or meter readers could not find some of the meters because the owner had moved and taken the meter away.
DA councillor Warren Burne said the situation was concerning and was a tussle between the revenue unit on the one hand and the water and the electricity units on the other.
“The revenue unit wants to take over the process so that it can be done properly, because it is the revenue unit which gets blamed for the errors in the metro bills. But the water unit and the electricity unit are apparently protective about keeping control of their billings.”
Burne said that about two years ago, it was agreed that the revenue unit would take over the meter-reading functions. “But no transition has taken place. Clearly, the existing arrangement is not working. This is clear from the tens of thousands of unread meters.”
Patrick Pillay of the Democratic Liberal Congress said residents in many cases had their electricity disconnected when they received huge bills they could not pay. He explained they would pay the estimated costs for many months and then suddenly, when the meters were eventually read and data captured, the amount owing would be so huge that it would be unaffordable.
“The problem of unread meters is further exacerbated when meter readers read the meter but the readings are not captured on time or are incorrectly captured. This has become a very concerning matter that needs to be urgently addressed by the city manager and the head of water and electricity,” said Pillay.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the issue was long-standing.
“I have said it before, that this council provides these bills that are based on estimation, so it is not surprising that later people get bills of R200 000 or more as though they have swimming pools or have irrigation (projects).”
Nkosi said city officials needed to get a handle on the situation to ensure that bills sent to consumers were accurate