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GOOD people, your assistance please. Further down the page you will see a screenshot of the City of Johannesburg’s new, revamped and upgraded website. (I can’t help wondering how much we, the happy citizens of this world-class African city, paid for it.)
You see the little note right in the middle of the page? I have to log in, using the Login facility “on top righthand side”. Now here’s where I really, really need your help, because I think I’ve probably been blinded by the mustardy yellow banner: what login facility?
I see Facebook, Twitter and Google+ logos; I see a search option; but for a coupla months now, ever since I first tried to login to the e-statements (for which I have been registered lo, these many years), I have been unable to track down the elusive login button.
So a few days ago, I tried something else. Perhaps they want us all to re-register, I reasoned to myself. Perhaps the login button only pops up once you’re in the system? Although I was in the system. But maybe I got lost?
Nyet, nyet, nyet. My registration failed.
Nothing for it, then. I am going to have to call the CoJ, to submit my ears, yet again, to that lousy loop of phone music (truly, I believe that you should be required by law to change your phone music – oh, once every ten years, shall we say?) and the tedium of waiting through endless cycles of “We are experiencing high call volumes”. (If you always have high call volumes, doesn’t it hint that you need to have more operators on the job?)
It was about ten minutes, I wasn’t keeping perfect track, before a real, live voice addressed me. I drew breath and spoke. Halfway through my first sentence, a dull bleep pierced my eardrum. I had been cut off.
Incensed, I took to Twitter and Facebook. I left enraged messages on both for the City of Joburg. It’s 48 hours later. Have I had a response? The answer, of course, is No.
Post Office blues
My husband, meanwhile, has been fighting the Post Office (#MarkBarnes, you listening?), where he paid monies due to the City of Joburg per arrangement. Nearly two months later, the money had still not reached the CoJ.
On enquiry, he discovered that the PO staff had deposited this significant sum – well, somewhere. It’s not very clear to me or him where; all we care about is that it’s still accessible and can be moved to the right account.
Four visits to the PO were needed to rectify the PO’s mistake, each of them offering time-consuming evidence of shoddy and downright lazy service. Now he just needs to ensure that the money has indeed reached the CoJ. Except, well, CoJ phone service (not-service). Yeah, you guessed it, the old wait-and-wait-and… bleep. So now he will have to go into Braamfontein to check in person.
That’s a drive of some forty minutes, find parking, wait in line, do the necessary, and back… a solid two and a half hours minimum, I reckon. I told him he should make out a couple of bills for his time, one for the PO, one for the CoJ.
Maybe I should do the same. Maybe all the people who responded to my Facebook complaint with time-wasting, teeth-gnashing stories of their own should charge the City for time and productivity lost. Maybe that would make the powers-that-be take notice.
Perhaps the MMC for Finance, Dr Rabelani Dagada, could help, I thought. I remembered hearing him on radio in November, addressing the issue of pre-termination notices sent out to people like me, good and regular payers – he blamed it on the previous regime. (Did anyone get refunded the R270 that we were charged for those notices, BTW?)
Except… oops, he isn’t MMC for Finance anymore: three weeks ago he was fired following allegations of nepotism and undue influence. I try a number of CoJ numbers, the mayor’s office, the metro manager and the like. Ring ring ring… bleep. (No switchboard?)
Eventually someone answers (I imagine her rattling around all alone in an echoing building) and gives me the cell number for the new MMC, Funzela Ngubeni. Ring ring ring and… bleep. It doesn’t even go to voice mail.
Next: put on the journo hat and try communications and marketing. There are three people and six numbers (cell and landline). Five of them ring and ring and … bleep. One single cell number offers voicemail, so I leave a message, clearly identifying myself as a journalist and saying I would like to clarify something for a column I am writing today.
A message flashes back: Sorry, I can’t talk now. Or ever, it seems, from the other side of four hours…
There’s big stuff and there’s little stuff. This is little stuff – compared to the drought in the Western Cape, the Life Esidimeni story, state capture, this is very small stuff. But what the bleep? This stuff is about how the city keeps ticking over, and how its ratepayers perceive its service.
Hey, CoJ! I’m not alone here – lots of us are having this experience. (And, 17 months into your term, you really shouldn’t be blaming the previous bosses, now should you?) How will you manage the big things – like, say, next year we face serious water issues, huh? – if you can’t even get this stuff right? Beeeg fail!
- Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter.
