CITY of Johannesburg executive mayor Mpho Moerane on October 6 launched e-Joburg, a municipal bill presentation and payment portal.
Zenzele is an online self-service portal for ratepayers to access and pay bills, lodge a query and interact with the City from the comfort of their homes.
Ratepayers will no longer have to visit a walk-in centre or call the City’s call centre.
They can now easily make payments and conveniently manage municipal accounts through the improved billing system.
The portal will also have a history of accounts and payments, and ratepayers can also view, manage and pay their bills and submit meter readings.
Consumers can update their demographic information to ensure effective communication with the city.
With Phase 1 of the portal up and running, it is expected that other services offered by the municipality will be added on in a phased approach.
Phase 1 entails billing (viewing, downloading and paying). There is also a WhatsApp option for bill notifications, payment notifications and viewing bills.
Other services to be added over the next few weeks in this phase include an extension of e-Joburg onto WhatsApp; allowing users to capture and submit their own meter readings; additional payment instructions; and the autopayment of accounts.
Phase 2 will entail acknowledgement of debt; getting an account balance; and access to more services.
The city is planning to have up to two years’ worth of historical bills available on the site.
Speaking during the launch, Moerane said this was just the beginning of enhanced service delivery to the city’s ratepayers.
“It’s a portal that will assist our residents to interact with local government, using their smartphones. We believe it’s a great milestone. That they will no longer spend their money to report queries and they don’t have to come and queue at our offices,” said Moerane.
“The key thing that I’m happy about today is that it will fix our billing problems.”
Starting with bill management and payment, the city will, over time, develop and deploy automated solutions, migrating as many manual processes as possible.
This is aimed at enhancing revenue management, thereby enabling accelerated service delivery.
Moerane emphasised that the city needed citizens to pay their rates for services so that the city could continue to provide those services.
He expressed his hope that the platform would eradicate problems experienced with payments, as well as negate the need for citizens to stand in long queues or have to make use of call centres.
Moreover, he said it fitted with the city’s vision to become a smart city.
While teething problems are expected, as with any new technology, Moerane encouraged users to use the site and report any issues, so that the city could improve on it and fix any problems.
- Inside Metros