BUFFALO CITY METRO RATEPAYERS BILLING DISPUTE CAMPAIGN

King William’s Town | Bisho |Mdantsane | East London 

This petition serves as to mobilise ratepayers across the Buffalo City Metro to protect them when Buffalo City Municipality is charging them according to incorrect and wrongful readings for electricity or water consumption.

We believe that these services are basic human rights and are protected by the highest law in the land, our Constitution. Therefore as the ratepayers of the City which are: King Williams Town / Bisho | Berlin | Mdantsane | East London and all Buffalo City Wards, we believe that Act, section 102 (2), to be specific, states that citizens have the right to complain should they want to dispute an inaccurate reading, irregular amount due and suspicious tariff increases, which in this case Buffalo City is the culprit.

As Ratepayers of BCM we demand justice from the municipality for wrongfully and incorrectly billing us with excessive charges for water and electricity!  We demand that while the City investigate the matter of incorrect billing to halt any estimated billing from happening and we further demand that the municipality to come out to our properties that have lodged billing disputes, inspect the meters, and take an actual reading of the meter. During this period we do not expect any billing of water to take place as it will be in contravention with the Municipal systems act (no.32 of 2000.

For years, scores of residents have complained of their municipal accounts being incorrect, with ratepayers being slapped with unexplainable exorbitant bills, sometimes even running into tens of thousands of rand in one month and to date the BCM has not fixed its systems.

This billing conundrum has been a headache for residents who have been sent from pillar to post whenever they try to sort out their bungled accounts with little help from Buffalo City Offices. In most cases BCM municipality estimated water meter readings because water meter readers had been suspended, meaning for months there was no reading of meters but they have been able to charge residents with exorbitant amounts.

With this campaign we would like to demand the suspension of the billing system until an investigation has commenced and that the City suspends its billing services.