The eThekwini Municipality says it is working to ensure that customers are billed correctly for the services they use.
In a statement during a media briefing on Wednesday, mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said in an effort to curb water losses and ensure that residents are billed correctly, the municipality commenced with a new meter reading contract on the December 13, 2023.
Furthermore, he added, two new meter reading platforms were also commissioned and implemented in the same period.
“The platforms bring improved technology where readings obtained and captured into the hand-held terminals are also photographed with a time and date stamp. All meters found and read during the reading cycle are also logged on GPS for future location by the meter reading and maintenance teams,” he said.
Kaunda said all readings obtained are audited within the platforms that have business intelligence built into it to ensure readings being sent to Revenue Management System for billing are accurate and reflect the true consumption of the customer.
“We are pleased to report that in the January/February cycle, over 500 000 properties were visited of which 393 822 properties were billed on actual readings, which is an improvement from 22% to 75.51%.
“The remaining 127 793 properties were estimated because meter readers could not obtain accurate reading either due to the meter being broken, vandalised or just inaccessible,” he said.
The Mercury