Electronic billing plan for city

“TRUDGING” to community halls every month-end to settle municipal accounts will soon be a thing of the past with the eThekwini Municipality partnering with Ithala Bank to allow residents to receive and settle their bills electronically.

The city’s executive committee recently approved the Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment solution (EBPP) that is meant to make residents’ lives easier. The “historic” partnership will be presented for approval at a full council meeting tomorrow.

Ithala will be paid R8 million over a three-year period to implement the integrated revenue management solution.

“This integrated revenue management system is guaranteed to increase eThekwini municipality’s ability to collect revenue and protect revenue against theft and losses,” the municipality said.

It said the current manual processing of bills had a number of disadvantages, including that the meter readings were estimated. Krish Kumar, the Deputy City Manager, Finance, said the bills would be digitised and sent to customers via SMS.

“People will receive and can pay via their cellular phones. This will save us on postage as people in the townships do not have structured addresses,” he said.

City documents reveal that, on average, the municipality sends out postage (utility bill) to an estimated 563 000 households on a monthly basis.

“We also have customers who have not given us their cellphone numbers, so Ithala will find those numbers so that residents can be linked up to the system and be billed,”said Kumar.

He said the initiative was risk-free for the city as Ithala had assumed all the risks, and that it would create business opportunities and employment.

“We will get all our money. Small and medium enterprises will benefit as those people could be in charge of operating the kiosks that will be located in various parts of Durban.”

He said it would also make it possible for the metro police to send fines directly to offenders via cellphone.

Kumar said the arrangement with Ithala would not affect the city’s current banking arrangement with Nedbank.

“We have a bank account with Nedbank. Every five years we go out on a banking tender, and when that expires Ithala will get an opportunity to tender for that contract,” he said.

eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede said the partnership would create about 325 jobs and redistribute about R50 million to local businesses.