The City of Johannesburg’s debt relief programme is failing the people it is meant to help, because of serious problems in the city’s revenue department, Ward 81 councillor Joanne Horwitz has warned.
Horwitz pointed out that her office has received many complaints from residents who are struggling financially, but cannot access the debt relief programme.
The problem, she said, is that the city is taking too long to fix basic issues on municipal accounts, such as name changes, ownership updates, and billing errors.
She added that, in many cases, residents wait more than six months for simple account corrections to be processed. Because their details are not updated in time, they are then blocked from applying for debt…