Software havoc at City of Windhoek

A NEW billing system introduced by the City of Windhoek late last year is causing havoc with client accounts.

The municipality’s debt management department has been trying to fix client account irregularities, caused by the system, for the past two months. The City introduced its new E-Venus billing system in October, hailing the software as the answer to customer complaints about bad service.However, since March, problems have popped up in the processing of payments, as well as in the accounts mailed to clients.The City acknowledged last week that its land sales and housing departments are trying to sort out the problem, saying the system should be under control by the end of June.’This matter is receiving our urgent attention and we trust that this process will be finalised within the next two months,’ the City’s public relations department said last week.Clients who believe these glitches have affected them are requested to contact the municipality.The E-Venus system brought to an end the pro-rata daily charges previously applied by the municipality to the connection or disconnection of water and electricity on a monthly basis.These included connection and disconnection charges for refuse, sewage and waste collection.It replaced this with a monthly basic fee, which disregards the number of days in a particular month in which the service was used.