We, the undersigned residents, and ratepayers of the Msunduzi Municipality, hereby unanimously voice our serious concern with and objection against the continued and unresolved billing issues and problems caused by the Msunduzi Local Municipality, which include the following:

The unlawful estimations; the unlawful raising of disconnection and reconnection fees; the unlawful raising of interest the continuous incorrect billing and/or reading of our consumption meters; residents not receiving accounts; unnecessary account queries/disputes remaining unresolved, in some cases, for years; the unlawful disconnection or restriction of our services without prior notice or otherwise in a manifestly procedurally unfair manner; the disdain with which complainants are treated by municipal staff when attempting to resolve their billing issues; the multiple billing cycle which was imposed on residents without due and proper process. It was implemented unlawfully and is causing enormous hardship to paying consumers.

We residents and ratepayers are aggrieved at the multiple billing problems that remain impacting our lives despite three provincial interventions in terms of s139 of the Constitution. We strongly object to the discriminatory practices of the Msunduzi Municipality in collecting revenue in that a large percentage of residents, businesses and government departments who are financially able to pay are not contributing at all or have large accounts outstanding without any action by the Municipality. We demand equality before the law in the Municipality’s collection of rendering consolidated bills to all consumers and the collection of all income duly owed to it.

We demand equality before the law in the Municipality’s collection of rendering consolidated bills to all consumers and the collection of all income duly owed to it. We further demand equality before the law in the Municipality’s dealing with illegal water and electricity connections that are damaging the water and electricity infrastructure. We demand that the Msunduzi Municipality puts in place a program to finally resolve the multiple billing and other issues and to restore equity amongst all residents and ratepayers towards the revenue collection. We emphasise that the above billing issues are infringing on our human rights and constitute contraventions of various provisions of the Constitution. We strongly support any legal or other lawful action MARRC wishes to take to give effect to or use this petition to resolve the above billing issues.