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Blessings Chidakwa

Municipal Correspondent

Harare Municipality’s new billing system, Sage Evolution, has been described by the Harare Residents Association as inadequate, chaotic and undermining revenue collection, while council insists that it is top-notch.

Council, which is now issuing monthly electronic bills, making it easier for residents to pay their bills, is facing criticism of dumping the BIQ system.

Council disagrees, saying that it was expensive and did not have the functionality of enterprise resource planning.

Residents believe the BIQ system, unlike Sage Evolution, had the capacity to capture all rates items, do online procurement, asset control, salaries processing, among several other functions.

Some residents allege that they are receiving inaccurate bills.

Harare City Council recently ditched its BIQ billing system citing the system’s failure to deliver the functionality of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to the city and high costs associated with running it.

The city noted with concern that users were unable to generate instant ad hoc reports on the BIQ system.

City fathers decided to ditch the BIQ billing system after it became too expensive to maintain.

The local authority was paying US$363 000 annually for rights to use the system.

The BIQ system had been supplied by a local agent, Group View Technology, on behalf of a South African developer, Quill Associates.

However, the migration to a new billing system — Sage Evolution — is proving increasingly difficult due to periodic software glitches.

In a statement, the Harare Residents Trust (HRT) said it is disappointed with the council’s new billing system.

“The system has proved that it lacks the capacity needed to serve the city,” said HRT. “The City Council migrated from the BIQ billing system to Sage Evolution. Upon switching to Sage Evolution, the Harare City Council cited that the system is more efficient and easier to use than BIQ.

“However, the new system has been faulty and shambolic, failing to capture all the properties supposed to be billed in Harare.”

HRT is led by Mr Precious Shumba.

The residents said the new Sage Evolution system is too small for a city as big as Harare and works best with small numbers.

“The Sage Evolution billing system is always down,” said HRT.

“This has affected residents in payment of rates which have a direct impact on service delivery. Revenues have progressively declined.

“The new billing system’s glitches have also meant that the city is struggling to provide bills to ratepayers. Sometimes ratepayers are told to pay amounts that they find “reasonable.”

The HRT said council must act objectively, swallow their pride and re-engage with BIQ so that they reach a middle ground and get the situation resolved.

Harare City Council corporate communications manager Mr Michael Chideme dismissed the claims.

“It is not true,” he said. “Our billing system is top-notch. If individual customers have specific problems, they are free to contact our revenue offices for a reconciliation.”