CONVENIENTLY LETTING MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT ARREARS ACCUMULATE WITHOUT ANY PROPER NOTIFICATION

Good day,

I would please like to lodge a complaint against the South African Council of Planners (SACPLAN). I studied Urban and Regional Studies and during our final year we were advised to register as Candidate Planners with SACPLAN. You needed to be registered as a Candidate Planner to one day be able to register as a Professional Planner. I registered with them while still having high hopes of finding work after my studies in the planning field. This was in 2011. If I recall correctly there was a registration / annual fee that I paid. Since the day I finished my studies I have never been able to find employment as a planner. I assumed that when the time comes for the renewal of my Candidate Registration, SACPLAN would ask for the payment of the fee, or cancel my subscription would automatically be cancelled. No such thing happened.

From time to time I noticed emails from SACPLAN in my Junk Mail. As one does with Junk Mail, I never paid much attention to them. I just assumed I was still on their mailing list. Recently – that is: 8 years after the payment - I noticed an email starting with the word “Customer Statement” linked to it. I found this odd and decided to have a look. To my great astonishment I found a bill for nearly R 3 000. I straight away wrote to SACPLAN enquiring about this as I had no idea that I was still registered with them 8 years later. I received a very formal reply from the CEO, Martin Lewis, stating that by such and such law my registration could only be cancelled after I have written to them and requested the cancellation. I once again wrote to him explaining that I was not aware of any of this and that he must please understand my shock at receiving such an account. I once again received an email referring me to the relevant legislation.

This left me very unsettled for various reasons. The first is that although they are protected by certain legislations, they did not make serious attempts to notify people of their arrears or cancel their membership otherwise. The email I received did not have a heading stating, “Overdue Payment”, or “Pay now”, it only said “customer statement”. If, for example, I do not pay my university fees I cannot continue the following year or at best I will be approached for assistance. My arrears will also be clearly made known to me. SACPLAN has, however, for 8 years, conveniently let my account role over without letting me know that I am running up debts that I cannot afford.

The reason I say conveniently is that I am surely not the only unsuccessful Candidate Planner with whom they are doing this. This made me realise a second point. Should they not indebt innocent people, they would lose a part of their income. This is what really upsets me. As many other former planning students will testify, the supply of planning students that finish every year in South Africa far outreaches the demand. There is not enough work for students once they finish and SACPLAN is doing nothing in this regard. For my apparent 8 years with them they also did absolutely nothing to help me in any way. Now it is us, the failed Candidate Planners who struggle to get by that partly needs to fund SACPLAN as they cannot make a big enough effort to firstly communicate the cancelation procedures clearly and then to notify those who do not pay after a year that their registration will continue and they will receive large invoices. Do they not realise that those who are not paying are those who are probably struggling to get by as they could not find work as planners?

During my studies we were continuously taught about transparency. I fail to see how SACPLAN is implementing transparency in this. I have since straight away cancelled my apparent registration after which they happily forward me my final invoice of an impressive R 2 990-00. I wonder if I did not notice this at this stage what type of account I would have finally received without ever being properly informed.