ANNOUNCEMENT OF AMNESTY AND SUPPORT TO THE INDIGENT

The Municipal Council at their meeting held on 25 September 2018, after considering a report which presented the challenges faced by the residents of Msunduzi as well as decisions taken by the Municipality in the past, resolved to offer all customers of Msunduzi amnesty to bylaw and policy breaches and discounts on their accounts outstanding as at 30 June 2018. Further to this, the campaign will aggressively register all the residents of the Municipality who are indigent but not on the indigent register.

The requirement for this benefit is for each prospective applicant to fill in the attached application form which will take about 10 minutes to complete and thereafter submit it to the appropriate collection point. This form is stage one of the amnesty application. Once the form is filled in and submitted, the applicant will receive an SMS with a reference number. Once this SMS and reference number is received, only then will the applicant proceed and fill in the stage two form which will then collect further specific information which is pertinent to their application. Should the applicant not receive the SMS with the reference number within 4 weeks of application, it is likely that the application was not received. In this case, the applicant will be requested to submit a new application. The reference number is proof that the application was submitted, received and captured to the system. The applicant is therefore required to keep this reference number safely for future engagement with the Municipality.

The application is not complete until the applicant receives a letter confirming that the application for amnesty is approved. Therefore in order to ensure that the applicant qualifies for the amnesty, he/she will have to meet all the requirement that the Municipality will request as the application progresses from each stage of the process. Any person who stops in the middle of the process or refuses to provide specified requirements within a reasonable time, will result in their amnesty application being rejected. Therefore the onus is on the applicant to ensure that they meet all the requirements in order for their application to be approved. The Municipality will do all they can to assist each and every applicant to progress their application to approval stage, however that will require cooperation from each customer.

Once the stage one application is received and processed, the application will progress to stage two of the application process, from then onwards, a Municipal official will be in contact with you for to complete the full application process.

A - Electricity
1. Where you have electricity supply but not being billed for the electricity service irrespective of the reasons for this;
2. Where the electricity supply was disconnected and the electricity was illegally reconnected, regardless who did the reconnection;
3. Where the electricity meter is tampered with in any form i.e. the meter does not have seals, the meter has been made to run slower to save on consumption costs, the meter has been bypassed with the bridge wires installed underneath or any manner of meter tampering not mentioned here;
4. The meter was disconnected and still disconnected for tampering some time ago and could not raise the tamper fee in order to enjoy the electricity benefits;
5. The meter was disconnected some time ago for non-payment and the customer could not raise the funds to reconnect the supply;
6. There is a direct connection that is not metered;
7. There is no Municipal MCB, and the supply is passing through without any current restriction;
8. The customer is paying for MCB size less than the one installed on their electricity installation;
9. The MCB is tampered in any form;
10. The MCB is scratched its size and could not be determined what size it is; and
11. There are numerous meters in the meter box not in use and these meters needing to be removed

B - Water and Sanitation
1. Where the property has a water supply but there is no water meter to be billed from
2. Where the property has a water meter but that water meter is not in the billing system and the customer is not receiving water services bill with water services charges in it
3. Where the customer has installed a direct connection bypassing the water meter
4. Where the customer has installed an illegal connection without following the normal Municipal application process to have water service installed.

C - Finance and Treasury
Accounts with an arrear balances as at 30 June 2018, qualify for amnesty discounts
1. The services arrear accounts
2. The interest on arrear accounts
3. The customers who have lodged disputes with the Municipality that has not yet been resolved, the Municipality will fast-track those disputes and offer settlements,
4. The accounts that have queries that has been outstanding for a long time, the Municipality will fast-track those queries and offer settlements,

D - Any other Breach
Any other breach that the customer might know of and wishes to raise it with the Municipality. In this case the applicant will need to provide details in order for the breach to be captured and processed.

Customers are warned that if they do not take advantage of this opportunity, the Municipality will be conducting Council wide installation audits and property inspections, and any breach that is found will be dealt with in terms of the Municipal Bylaws, credit control and debt collection policy and any other laws applicable within the Republic of South Africa. The Municipality can charge a penalty as contained in the Register of Tariffs and recover up to 36 months of lost revenue.

The forms will be available from municipal buildings, ABM offices, libraries and Msunduzi website.