The ordinary South African consumer struggles to find basic information on municipal accounts. Many consumers pay their municipal account every month without a clue as to how much water or electricity they have used, or what the cost per kilolitre or kilowatt-hour is. Many consumers do not even understand the difference between a litre and kilolitre. Nor do they know what "balance brought forward", "arrears" or "consumption" means. Codes, abbreviations and acronyms make these accounts even more difficult to understand.

These are some of the findings of a recent study by the Water Research Commission on municipal accounts. The study developed a Tool to evaluate municipal accounts and tested three accounts (good, average and weak) with a national sample of 2500 adults.

Only 7.4% of respondents could find the monthly water use on the municipal account that got an average score on the Tool. This municipality serves 150 000 households. One can ask the question: how do municipalities or government in general expect consumers to save water and electricity, if their monthly water and electricity use is presented in such an incomprehensible manner that not even the highest LSM groups can understand it? (Only 14% of respondents in the highest two LSM groups found the correct answer on this account.)

Respondents in the lower LSM groups and respondents whose home language is not English had even more difficult to understand these accounts.

25% of urban adults who receive a municipal account disagree that it is easy to understand, or find information on their municipal accounts. 35% disagree (of which 17% totally disagree) that they trust their municipal accounts to be correct.

On the positive side, the study proved that simple changes increase consumer understanding of municipal accounts and trust in the correctness of the account significantly. Several municipalities, such as Tshwane and Cape Town, have already improved their accounts.

The study recommends the standardisation of municipal accounts. Municipal accounts can make a significant contribution to reduce our water and energy footprint. If all municipal accounts in South Africa are clear and understandable to all consumers, as required by the Consumer Protection Act, consumers will  understand their own usage patterns and will use their accounts as a tool to save water and electricity.

Currently, consumers have to sift through incomprehensible codes, numbers, small print, and abbreviations to find the single amount that they must pay to avoid disconnection or restriction. This state of affairs contributes nothing to save our resources and wastes taxpayers' money.

 For more information contact:

Dr Sarah Slabbert (project leader)

Sarah-s@iafrica.com

011 476 5915

083 460 6832