My fresh billing crisis goes back nearly two years now

The Jo’burg billing crisis has become a political football, as ANC-led city officials insist the DA has no authority to step in on residents’ behalf.

The acting cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister has apologised to Johannesburg residents for a wide scale billing crisis.

Jo’burg residents affected by billing problems will be provided with a "favourable settlement arrangement" that includes discounts, Amos Masondo says.

Johannesburg residents protested over council billing complaints outside the city’s customer service centre in Braamfontein on Friday.

The Johannesburg metropolitan council is dealing with an internal fracas between companies contracted to implement billing software.

Minister Sicelo Shiceka owes Jo’burg municipality almost R35 000, but it is unclear whether his services were cut off, a media report said.

In Johannesburg’s Diepsloot the backyards of RDP houses are a maze of shacks that far outnumber the formal structures in whose shadow they stand.

Gross irregular spending, the continued haemorrhaging of municipal funds in eThekwini were just some of the auditor general’s findings.