eThekwini council approves roadmap to phase out revenue management system

The ANC-led eThekwini council has voted to approve a process that is likely to see the phasing out of the city’s controversial billing system, while opposition parties remain adamant that they want to know how much money had been spent on it over the years.

It is believed over R1 billion had been spent since the Revenue Management System (RMS) was introduced. During a council meeting on Friday, the council approved the roadmap to implement the Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (MSCOA) project which would likely trigger the dismantling of the RMS system as it was not compatible with the project.

MSCOA is a project spearheaded by the National Treasury with the aim of improving financial reporting across local governments. It was initiated to address concerns around inconsistencies in local government financial processes, irregular reporting and poor data integration. MSCOA enforces accounting standards, including the collection of financial data.

EThekwini has to table a roadmap on the MSCOA project which must begin implementation by December next year. The Mercury reported last week that officials said that it was more cost-effective to go out and source a new system that could be configured to comply with MSCOA than to spend money trying to fix a system that was already nearing the end of its lifespan.

DA councillor Yogis Govender said that they had repeatedly warned the city leadership about the failed RMS system. “We are hereby requesting a full report on the total RMS spend to date and will put that request in writing in terms of the prescribed avenues,” she said. She added that years ago the RMS project ballooned from an estimated R150 million to a staggering R1.1bn – 666% over budget.

ACDP councillor Jameel Essop said the system had tremendous billing problems and the leadership of the ANC had promised to address it, but failed. “We still have erroneous billing, the system has failed in other municipalities and we as ACDP have questioned why we bought a system that has failed in other municipalities,” he said.

ANC councillor Nkosenhle Madlala pleaded with the councillors to approve the road map, saying it was a compliance issue and failing to do so could make the municipality miss some of the compliance deadlines. He said there would be a workshop where all the concerns could be ventilated.

Reacting to the developments regarding RMS, local government expert and former eThekwini city manager Mike Sutcliffe said the challenge faced by the municipality over the future of its billing system was normal, saying there was a need to review and change the IT systems every five years.

“Almost all municipalities are faced with a challenge of whether to update or change their system,” said Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe, who was instrumental in the introduction of the RMS to eThekwini, said the fact that it had been working for close to 13 years was positive news for the city.