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Behind the ombudsman’s impressive performance figures lies a crippling crisis: too few investigators, too many billing errors and a city administration in freefall. Residents are turning to the watchdog as a last hope — but even it is running out of capacity.
The City of Johannesburg’s Office of the Ombudsman appears, at first glance, to be one of the metro’s few success stories. It exceeds nearly every performance target: 99% processing compliance, a 70% resolution rate, a 61% drop in backlog cases and 21 proactive investigations into service-delivery failures.
These first-impression achievements mask an internal crisis. The ombudsman is severely under-resourced, understaffed and overwhelmed by billing and service delivery disputes arising from the city’s ongoing administrative failures.
The office ended the year with a R6-million underspend — not because it saved money, but because it didn’t have enough staff.
A small team of legally trained investigators is expected to perform the work of an entire oversight institution. One investigator handles up to 200 matters at a time, even though international best practice recommends no more than 30.
Despite this, the office is encouraging residents to make more use of its services.
The contact detail for the ombudsman is joburgombudsman@joburg.org.za. Their website is www.joburgombudsman.co.za.
Complaints can be lodged online at https://complaints.joburgombudsman.org.za/ or alternatively the complaint form provided below can be completed and returned by email to the abovementioned contact address.
Read the full article on the Daily Maverick here.