(QUOTE: “The Gauteng health MEC’s personal assistant has been enjoying the cheapest accommodation in Johannesburg - a state-owned house for less than R10 a day.” Read the STORY: by Themba Wa Sepotokele in THE STAR, PICTURE main page THE STAR Newspaper.) If the government charged a market related monthly rental of R4000 - R5000, this house would place approximately R54 thousand rand per annum in government coffers, enough to treat more than half a dozen people suffering from AIDS with anti-retrovirals for a year!
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Accounts Department
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Dear Sir/Madam,
Re: Excessive water account
Kindly note that there is an error in your rates account for water usage at
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Period October 2009
Stand number
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Account number xxxxxxx
Note that you have charged us for 109 thousand litres over 29 days for a household with two adults and one child and a 412 square meter property. This means you have charged us nearly eight times the average we normally pay with water increase tariffs included.
I have made the following inspections as I am a maintenance supervisor in a large company, to ensure that:
the water meter is actually working.
there is no leak in our water system which would result in an excessive water reading.
once all the taps, appliances and toilets are turned off the meter remains static.
Incorrect readings result from meter readers punching in incorrect data, the generation of incorrect invoices at your offices, but could also result by manipulating usage to extort income from consumers. In the case I am presenting, you give a previous reading 2353 (note you do not say from when), and a supposedly actual (latest) erroneous reading 2462 for September 2009. However the reading is actually 2374 as at 20 October 2009. The picture I have taken of our meter is on Thursday 22 October 2009 witnessed by my wife, son and myself (see also affidavit).
If you subtract the present reading from our water meter which is from the 20 October 2009 (the present reading is) 2374 – 2353 (your previous reading) = 21 Kilo litres However you have charged us for 109 Kilo litres. The whole issue here is not the objection to paying for services consumed but paying for your mistakes, or is it extortion?
Now knowing your method of dealing with the public you will more than likely try the hogwash “back payment usage” argument, or even just trash this letter. Like most of the consumers who have had to deal with you from our community, we feel there is no integrity in your BEE organization except to look after your own narrow interests namely the yearly holiday, the big cars, the smart cell phones, jostleling for position within your organisation, lavish homes and life styles, overseas trips and the brand name clothes. We are well aware of what is happening around the country and also in our communities. If you keep your ear to the ground you will also find people have no respect for you as a result of your generally nil service and bad manners. We are also aware that if we pay the money upfront for your “errors” there is nigh hope of us ever seen it again except that a big portion of this will go into some Fat Cats Bonus, so I say well done to you sir/madam.
If we do get money back this will be somewhat short of a miracle but we won’t thank you because this is actually our money which we worked for, and in any case you should have done your job properly in the first place.
Should we not get a credit on our account, or some form of an acknowledgement from you we are going to send this letter to the press and many local newspapers. You have a pathetic way of dealing with the public eg. never answering your phones, lifting up the receiver and then placing it down again, trotting out the same tripe to the ratepayers over and over, garbage that will only pass the test in Africa. However despite your don’t care less attitude the second thing we will do is place this information on as many blogs as we can, and also inform a real world class political party such as the DA. People need to know how Africans treat people and perhaps this will trigger an investigation to see whether there is a possibility any monies paid into your BEE organization are being reversed and paid into “personal accounts”.
Oblige
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contact: xxxxxxxx
