#YOU MUST HAVE A LEAK! #YOU MUST MAKE AN ARRANGEMENT! The City of Johannesburg's **** water billing ****.

1. The City of Johannesburg is not registered with the National Credit Regulator as an accredited credit provider.

2. The City of Johannesburg has entered into thousands of ********** Acknowledgments of Debt with Johannesburg residents. How many Acknowledgments of Debt exactly, the National Credit Regulator has been in default in reporting.

3. Section 51 of the Consumer Protection Act prohibits deceptive or ********** agreements.

51. Prohibited transactions, agreements, terms or conditions.­

(1) A supplier must not make a transaction or agreement subject to any term or condition if­

(a) its general purpose or effect is to­

(i) defeat the purposes and policy of this Act;

(ii) mislead or deceive the consumer; or

(iii) subject the consumer to ********** conduct;

(e) it requires the consumer to enter into a supplementary agreement, or sign a document, prohibited by subsection (2) (a);

(2) A supplier may not­

(a) directly or indirectly require or induce a consumer to enter into a supplementary agreement, or sign any document, that contains a provision contemplated in subsection (1);

4. Johannesburg Water abandoned its best-practice 8-10 year water meter replacement schedule. A huge proportion of Johannesburg Water's water meter fleet consists of approaching-30 year old Kent water meters which the agents in the UK told me were sold to the Municipality with a 10 year life expectancy and a 1 year warranty. S95(1) of the Municipal Systems Act requires a local government to take reasonable steps to provide for accurate and verifiable meters where it relies on measuring consumption for the purposes of billing. Obviously, it is not reasonable to use meters that should have been thrown away 20 years before. The City of Johannesburg enacted a punitive sliding scale for water consumption contemporaneously. The result is that thousands of Johannesburg residents have gone into the call centres, huge bills for water they know they did not possibly consume in hand, only to be met by CoJ officials who jubilantly tell them "You must have a leak! You must make 'an Arrangement'!

5. In the City of Johannesburg v National Consumer Commission (NCT/***(1)(P), NCT/***(1)(P)) [2012] ZANCT 6 (30 March 2012) the Consumer Tribunal lectured both the Consumer Commission and the City of Johannesburg as to what 'an investigation' looks like. A perfect model answer on what constitutes a valid lawful investigation. I have never seen any CoJ investigation where there is actually a file with a record of the investigation, nor heard of one.

6. Thousands of Johannesburg residents have gone into the call centres, huge bills for water they know they could not possibly have consumed (like the old lady in Glenvista who got the R500 000 water bill!) in hand, only to be met by CoJ officials who are ******** of the By-Laws and Municipal Systems Act and the reality that they are required to investigate a billing complaint using methodology resembling the CoJ v Consumer Commission model. This is why there have been such shoddy investigations from the City of Johannesburg's officials whose 'Billing Crisis' is now in its second decade.

7. The Honourable Members of the Trade and Industry Committee are remiss in compelling the National Credit Regulator to disclose as part of its duty of regulation and enforcement how many Acknowledgments of Debt the City of Johannesburg has been party to that arose from monthly services bills in excess of the historical average, or investigating where there has been such huge bills what meters were involved and how old those meters were. It is also unclear whether the City of Johannesburg Pension Fund acted as a credit provider underwriting any such Acknowledgments of Debt or how such an obvious conflict of interest could arise where the same officials compelled by the By-Laws and Municipal Systems Act to investigate billing complaints would benefit financially if they did not lawfully fulfill their duty to investigate valid complaints but bully residents of Johannesburg into signing Acknowledgments of Debt. If this is fact how did the National Credit Regulator miss this or take no disciplinary action? The National Credit Regulator must be made to do her duty without fear or favour or prejudice even where Johannesburg is concerned.

8. Behind every failed SOC in this country is a regulator that failed to do its duty. Behind the Joburg Billing Crisis is a sad tale of utter failure by ALL our 'Regulators' and Chapter 9s.. To the best of my knowledge the National Prosecuting authority has never prosecuted anyone under the Older Persons Act 13 of 2006. The Region C call centre is in the middle of a cluster of older suburbs where a lot of pensioners live. I have seen the Kent water meters at some of those houses. They are even older than ours. When I emailed the Trade and Industry PPC on 10/30/2018 I alerted the Honourable Members to the fact that the water meter tests conducted in Johannesburg appeared hugely compromised and flawed - in terms of accreditation and competencies - and that the NRCS appeared to be doing little about it. Well, after that, the NRCS did investigate. Water meter testing was suspended from November 2018 until April 2019 until the City was compliant. (Since then I have heard of water meters actually failing tests.)

9. Where there are huge water bills the City of Johannesburg can very easily resort to billing based on that property's historical average if the City is in such dire financial straits it cannot afford new water meters. There is no excuse for *****.

10. The CCoJ (*****edCityofJohannesburg) was able to quadruple the income out of fines under DA governance. (And increase the income out of interest on Acknowledgments of Debt to more than investment income.) Fines, forfeits.... See Table A4 from the CoJ's Budget Book. When the DA came in in 2016 income was roughly R239 806 000. When they left it was R***. Interest earned from outstanding debtors was R213 650 000. It is now R401 433 000. See why the DA would not stop the *****ed City's officials de*****ing old people like my dad with **** water billing from 30 year old Kent meters (that were supposed to be thrown away after 10? Mashaba had to have that money. When the DA took over the City's unproductive wage bill was R***0. It is now R***0. The theft has to continue. The DA were allowed to get away with it because many of their supporters - vitally, their constituency committees - share a statist, authoritarian, coercive and prescriptive world view with the ANC that is perfectly OK with fining people for exercising their property rights offensively, and save their outrage for that, and are silent about real outrages, like destroying old people's social security.

All the best

Brett Nortje