Chaos as CoJ’s billing and payments systems buckle

The e-Joburg portal is currently showing zero payments on any statements for the past two years. Picture: iStock The City of Johannesburg’s two core billing systems are offline, and its customer services centres stopped accepting payments on Monday (2 February). It is understood that all payments made in the past two weeks (since 19 January) are not reflecting on the city’s systems or its self-service e-Joburg portal.

The systems, one that manages billing and the other, Venus, which accepts payments, are part of the city’s sprawling SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Ward 117 Councillor Tim Truluck says both systems are “completely down”. Payments can still be made via online banking or banking apps as well as through EasyPay at supermarket tills (including Shoprite Checkers and Pick n Pay) across the country.

Truluck suggests that residents and businesses keep all proof of payments, should they be necessary down the line. The city’s e-Joburg portal shows zero payments on any statements for the past two years and no payments at all under any account’s payment history. Given this, it appears as if the interface between the two systems is broken, meaning that all receipts in the payment system are not synchronised with the billing engine.

[paywall]

A source who is familiar with ERP implementations suggests that the systems have been taken offline to avoid inaccurate penalties and/or interest being automatically charged on accounts in early February for ‘missed’ payments. Considering the scale of the problem – it affects more than 1.5 million accounts – this will likely take some time to fix.

[/paywall]