ITUMELENG MAFISA and NOXOLO MIYA
Johannesburg - The Gauteng Department of Health (GDoH) has blamed the exorbitant amount of money it owes to the City of Joburg (CoJ) on incorrect billing and problems with water connections.
In a statement, the department refuted a R240 million bill that the municipality had slapped on its door.
This week, the municipality announced that plans were under way to cut off services at some hospitals because of the debt.
Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse said the city had written to the premier of Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, to engage him on the matter. She said the city now had no choice, but to terminate certain services.
“Gauteng Health Department services are scheduled to be cut off if close to R240m is not paid by Friday,” Phalatse said.
The department had until Friday to respond to the municipality.
The department said: “First, it is important to state that on the outset the department’s current account with the municipality is up to date as of end of October 2022 in terms of the age analysis debtor’s statement.”
The GDoH said the R250m debt referred to by the city related to a dispute about Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in Parktown and Sizwe Tropical Disease Hospital in Edenvale on water and sanitation accounts and shared metres.
“The matter relates to a re-billing issue as a result of the CoJ’s own mistake. The municipality conceded to have applied a wrong ‘factor’ of 1 instead of 10 when charges were raised. GDoH settled invoices on factor 1. Subsequently the CoJ sent another re-billing with so-called corrections (water was backdated three years and sanitation backdated seven years). This became a heavy burden on the hospital’s budget,” the department said.
On Sizwe Tropical Disease Hospital, the department said there was a disputed amount of R60m that was related to meter reading and water leaks.
“This is subject to ongoing discussions between the hospital management and CoJ and Johannesburg Water representatives to find closure on the matter,” GDoH said.
“Where there are major disputes such as re-billing issues, meter identification and allocation thereof, timeous allocations of payments received by the City Joburg (even after the remittance advices would have been provided), allocation of payments received to old debt first, and not as per remittance advice thus giving a wrong reflection of the age analysis (invoices actually paid versus actual invoices still outstanding) etc, these are addressed at the Provincial Debtors Management Committee (constituted of the Gauteng Provincial Treasury, Gauteng Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, GDoH Head Office and Institutions) to arrive at solutions that are in the interest of sustaining service delivery across the various spheres of government.”
The Star