According to the City's Chief Financial Officer, Ramasela Ganda, the first of 22 kiosks have been procured and will be distributed to malls once internal processes have been completed.
"We want to include the payment of municipal services [in the shopping experience] by introducing a more convenient and modern way to do so. We want to turn our malls into one-stop shops where one can buy groceries, clothes or even pay for municipal services," she said.
The kiosks will allow residents to pay with cash, debit or credit cards. In future, the kiosks will be able to sell airtime, allow for the payment of traffic fines and cemetery fees, as well as to apply for new municipal services.
Ramasela said the City of Ekurhuleni has an obligation to make payment of services convenient and easy, while residents have an obligation to pay for the services delivered by the council.
This revenue enhancement drive is an addition to the City's online platform to view and pay for municipal accounts. The Siyahokha webiste Siyakhokha has in the past three years opened up a world of convenience for residents and business owners alike.
Member of Mayoral Committee for Finance, Moses Makwakwa, said the platform brings to an end a period of erroneous service suspensions.
"The service provides confirmation of payments and matches the payment to the statement, thus ensuring that payments are correctly reflected against one's account. Erroneous cut-offs due to incorrect referencing or delays in receiving payment are therefore almost completely eliminated," he said.
This, he added, will reduce the queues in rates offices as it also allows ratepayers to obtain a history of all their statements and payments at the click of a button, lodge queries and disputes and print or email statements for proof of address from that site.
"We expect our service levels to improve even further as the number of queries and walk-in customers reduce the load on staff in our finance offices and call centre," he said.
"Ratepayers are encouraged to make use of this system," Makwakwa said.
SAnews.gov.za is a South African government news service, published by the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS). SAnews.gov.za (formerly BuaNews) was established to provide quick and easy access to articles and feature stories aimed at keeping the public informed about the implementation of government mandates.
Go to: http://www.sanews.gov.za
