Louis Trichardt residents who experienced a sense of déjà vu upon opening their February municipal account, might want to take a closer look at their account.

Google explains déjà vu as “a common intuitive experience that has happened to many of us. The expression is derived from the French, meaning ‘already seen.’ When it occurs, it seems to spark our memory of a place we have already been, a person we have already seen, or an act we have already done.”

Many residents might have already seen (and paid) their 15 February 2016 account, the reason being that it is an exact copy of their 16 November 2015 municipal account. Those who keep track of their monthly payments almost immediately spotted the irregularity. “What are we supposed to do now? It's year end and I need to know what the correct amount is to make payment, otherwise our auditors will query the payment and our books will not balance,” said Ms Thea Oosthuizen of the Dutch Reformed Church Soutpansberg on Monday. She was busy getting the church’s financial statements ready for the financial year's end. Oosthuizen added that she struggled for quite some time to get the right amount for February 2016 from the municipality but eventually managed to succeed.

Oosthuizen was one of many residents who contacted the Zoutpansberger to enquire about their February 2016 municipal account. The newspaper itself compared its 15 February 2016 account to its 16 November 2015 account. The finding? An exact match.

The Makhado Municipality was asked to comment on how it could be that the same account as for November 2015 could be issued for February 2015?

“Yes, we are aware of the problem you are enquiring about,” was the response received from municipal spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi on Wednesday. “The correct billing was done, but the wrong data for November 2015 was picked for printing instead of February 2016,” Bobodi explained.

Asked whether or not all residents had received this erroneous billing statement for February, Bobodi responded by stating: “We cannot determine the number of statements wrongly sent, but we are reprinting statements for the customers as and when they request such for the same problem.”

In the meantime, Bobodi said, customers who received erroneous accounts for February could request the correct billing statement from them as they have it on their system. “We could not generalise the challenge to all customers, because we do not know how many received the wrong statements and we are reprinting them as per customer’s request. We will relax our credit control measures because of this error, mainly for the February billing,” Bobodi said. The faulty accounts are only with regard to the Makhado Municipality’s account and not the Vhembe District Municipality’s water usage account. Vhembe’s accounts are correct for 15 February 2016.