Msunduzi Municipality Electricity Account Troubles

I'm a relatively new home owner (just over a year now) and from the very start, I have had nothing but problems with my electricity account at the Msunduzi Municipality.

First, it took them 6 months to get me an account number, so I didn't even have enough information about my own account to send them my meter readings.. Then when I finally got that sorted out, I proceeded to send my readings in on most months (I did miss a few, unfortunately), but it seems like they have been blatantly ignoring all of the meter readings that I've been sending..

Now keep in mind that quite often I won't even get any account statements from them for months at a time, then suddenly I'll get 3 or 4 months' worth of statements delivered to me at once.

Then near the end of last year, I got a stack of statements showing an outstanding amount of almost R20k.. Closer inspection of the account shows that they had indeed been ignoring ALL of the meter readings I sent, instead estimating my usage the entire time. I can't even begin to imagine what they would base their estimations on, considering the account was so new that they couldn't possibly know how much electricity I actually use (living alone with mostly LED lighting, gas stove, gas geyser, etc).

I've been into the branch at the A.S. Chetty Centre numerous times to try and resolve this, each time being told that the meter usage value has been updated and that my account would be recalculated at the end of the month. Suffice to say this has not happened.

In fact, they have instead now handed my account over for collection by a legal firm... Now I have to sign an "admission of debt", which (I believe) will leave a permanent black mark on my personal credit rating. And all of this is simply because these idiots can't do their jobs properly.

How can ANY of this be considered just and fair?