Paying for a municipal workers incompetence

We have been dealing with an account, that has been put in arrears, because a gentleman, couldn't copy down numbers from the meter box correctly. This has been going on for months. The person who has made the mistake, is not held accountable. However we must now pay for this mistake. Nobody could solve this, or deal with it. It's all been passed on to someone else in the department. This is just ridiculous. Don't really expect anything from the people in the municipality, in terms of responses, as even when you are in the office you get none. This is just ridiculous, especially if you are a tax payer and a rates payer.