PHILIPSBURG--Many GEBE consumers were shocked and surprised to receive their electronic bills with multiple errors including exorbitant due amounts for their light and water running in the thousands of guilders, bills dating back to 2021; bills that do not reflect their actual consumption and in some cases, even addresses that they no longer reside at.
GEBE’s Public Relations Officer Paula Gordon told The Daily Herald that consumers should disregard the bills, noting that the company is in its testing phase and encountered a glitch which was picked up by its computer system and inadvertently issued to consumers.
GEBE will be issuing a statement on the matter today
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United People’s Party Member of Parliament (MP) Ludmila de Weever picked up on the issue during the notifications segment of a Parliament meeting held on Thursday morning. The MP said persons have contacted her about astronomical amounts that are reflected on their bills. She said while this is not a blame game, it is a country wide problem and it is not helping the survival of a government owned company.
She said there will be persons in the community reacting negatively to their bills and she hopes that clear answers are given in a planned Parliamentary Question Hour with VROMI Minister Egbert Doran on Friday
De Weever said the issue is beyond bills having to be disregarded. “It is more than that. People are receiving bills that do not match their last reading before GEBE was hacked; people are receiving bills with wrong addresses that they have not lived at for years, so depending on how this goes I want to see tomorrow if everyone is prepared for minimum of one hour (for the Question Hour-Ed], but the public needs to know a whole lot more about this and they need a lot more comfort because what is coming out there now is not affordable,” stated the MP.
