Municipal Benchmarking Project Formal Launch

The launch of the Benchmarking project to the particpant municipalities went well with a high level of support from the attendies.

Real and relevant comments were raised by the particpants, come of which related to the questionair it self, others to considerations for the future and quite a few related to the use of the data going forward to motivate overall business improvements and changes.

During the workshop the following comments and proposed changes to the Template were noted :    

1.       A comment/notes field is to be added to the spreadsheet.

2.       A field control indicator is to be added to track compulsory data input.   

3.       Sales and Revenue spreadsheet:

a.       Add Government to category field.

b.      Check Total/Autosum formula.

c.       Question 1:  Add the following - Do you buy from any other source other than Eskom, include City Power and Ekurhuleni. 

d.      Question 6:  Add the following word: Ringfenced.

e.      Internet Metering – should this added. 

f.        List Multipoint’s, Basic/Demand Charges 4-types of  Tariffs. 

4.       Operating Expenses spreadsheet:

a.       Question 1: Depreciation – a non cash line.

b.      A (Rand) value needs to be added for Vandalism – however Vandalism is part of Works Order and it is difficult to extract the information.

5.       Assets and Capital Expenditure spreadsheet:

a.       Question 6: Check further Voltage breakdown, this needs to fit the municipal environment – currently this works for Eskom.    

6.       Billing and Debtors spreadsheet:

a.       Add the following question: What is your revenue collected based on Electricity Sales.

b.      Comment: What is the State’s contribution to Debtors?.     

7.       NERSA spreadsheet:

a.       Question 2: Approved vs. Implemented, are the implemented tariffs currently used approved by NERSA.  

8.       Customer Services spreadsheet:

             a. Question 5: What Voltage is referred to.

All the above comments were considered and updated into a revision of the questionair. The questionair will be distributed by the Regional General Managers to the specific municipality via email. The questionair is to be copied over the existing file and can then be used to populate with data.