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For the last few months, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality (“the City”) has adopted a new practice of including a generic notification at the very bottom of every customer’s monthly municipal statements, which warn that in the event of non-payment, cut off will follow.
Remarkably, these notices appear on statements where the account is in a credit, sometimes millions of rand worth of credit. They are included on every customer’s statement, whether they are in credit or debit and whether they have any disputes pertaining to the account, or not.
In terms of the City’s Debt Collection and Credit Control Policy (“the Policy”) and according to the Constitutional Court, the disconnection of municipal services by the City can only take place after the delivery of a pre-termination notice to the party posed to be disconnected. Moreover, a pre-termination notice must afford a consumer a reasonable period in which to settle their account or make representation regarding the accuracy of the billed amounts.
According to the Constitutional Court, this “reasonable period” should be, at the very least, 14 days.
Being furnished with a pre-termination notice is therefore an essential aspect of procedural fairness regarding disconnections of municipal services. Our law provides that when a state body like a municipality is going to take a decision against a citizen or resident that would adversely and materially affect their rights (such as a decision to disconnect their service supply for non-payment), they must first notify that person of the proposed decision, and give that person a reasonable opportunity to make representations to the decision-maker.
This element of our law ensures that people are given an opportunity to “have their say” – so that their side of the story can be heard – before decisions that negatively affect them are taken. The idea is that if there are any errors in the decision, they can be brought to the attention of the decision maker and the proposed decision can be amended, or not implemented, to avoid any unlawfulness or unfairness occurring as a result of that decision.
A classic example would be where the municipality has accidentally not recorded a customer’s payment on their invoice, with the result that the invoice is reflecting a debit balance (an amount owing), when in fact the customer’s account should be in credit. In this case the municipality’s giving of a pre-termination notice to the customer, which permits the customer time to raise the issue with the decision maker, stops the decision maker implementing what would have turned out to be a bad, and unlawful, decision.
Contine reading the full article on the hbgschindlers attorneys website here.