Buffalo City Municipality - unwilling to resolve queries

Between Oct 2017 and Oct 2018 my water meter as not read. I decided to look, but found it submerged in water and not visible/ readable. I contacted the dept who informed me they would fix it within a week. Anyway, before the week was up, I came home in the dark to find them fixing it- no light or torches - basically by feel. I lent them a torch. By the time it was sorted out, 4 hrs later, they said the meter must be replaced and the reading adjusted because of the leak. To my surprise, I get a municipal bill nearly R7 500 more than normal - no adjustments. That it took 12 months to get an actual meter reading tells me that the meter reader saw the leak, couldn’t read the meter, AND FAILED TO REPORT IT!! I have sent numerous emails to various people at BCM with no positive response. The website “billing enquiries” number of ********** 504 has a message of “this number is not available at the moment” or something to that effect. One person who has been included in most emails is Nolusindiso Nyamana. Apparently the billing dept reports to her. Zero response. I have been threatened that my services will be discontinued unless I pay the “arrears”. I have learned that there is a journal entry pending release - when will it be done? I recently bought R1 500 electricity through Prepaid 24, only to find I got a token R400, and BCM had taken R1 100 to credit my arrears which is under dispute, and I’m actually owed over R7k. Why have a billing dept that does nothing? A functional billing dept would result in better management and collection of moneys, with far fewer arrears if queries could be sorted out. If the BCM managers and staff worked like the do in the private sector or corporate sector, they’d get fired very quickly. Municipal and government employment appears to be shelters employment.