Residents of Joburg are once again footing the bill for the city's billing system woes.
This after "a technical error" resulted in business and commercial properties not being billed for the new city cleaning levy from July 2008 to May 2009.
The levy was supposed to be carried by commercial property owners as it pays for, among other things, street cleaning.
Now it appears many residential properties, especially hundreds of sectional title owners, whose units have been incorrectly valued as commercial, are also affected.
And the council intends making its customers pay the current levy and the outstanding arrears.
This has infuriated many residents - some of whom cannot afford to pay such huge arrears.
Janet Baylis of Parkmore said her account, up to July this year, for rates, taxes and refuse was R977, of which R120 was for refuse removal.
"In June we received a bill of R2 565, of which R1 440 was for refuse." She claimed that when she queried this amount, she was told she had not paid for refuse during the 10 years she lived at her home.
Baylis said the official then told her the "department would be taking money whenever they wish from now on".
She explained to the official that she paid R120 a month - but was told the R120 was for "refuse adjustments" and not "refuse collection".
Baylis then went to Pikitup, who said she had not been charged for refuse collection at her property since the implementation of sectional titles in July 2008. They said the amount of R1 444 was for refuse charges for the past 12 months, backdated at R120 a month, excluding VAT.
Pikitup eventually admitted the amount was for a backdated street-cleaning levy.
According to Pikitup's acting director of communications, Pansy Jali, the cleaning levy was introduced by the City of Johannesburg in July 2008. It is to be used for "drastically" improving service delivery, she said.
"The city spends about R474-million annually on waste management. More than 75 percent of this is spent on street cleaning in the inner city and citywide, including busy roads and high-density visibility areas," she said.
The council's cleaning levy covers services which are not billed and include informal settlements; inner-city cleaning; cleaning citywide, for example, busy roads; littering and illegal dumping; and garden and landfill sites.
Jali said a letter had been sent to all City of Joburg's business clients on July 9 last year.
Brigitte Stern owns an empty factory in Marlboro. She stopped operations in 2004, but is maintaining the building.
"We never have been charged for refuse for the past about 15 years. All of a sudden, in June we received an account of R872 for rates and taxes, which is correct, and then R957 for domestic refuse charges."
She then received a further bill of R1 382.91.
"I phoned Joburg Connect and (was told) everything was correct. But I was not happy with that answer, so we went to the call centre in Sandton. Someone said it was a mistake - it was not for refuse, but for street cleaning."
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