Eskom solely to blame for its mounting debt

It is intriguing that the South African Local Government Association (Salga) should be calling on Eskom to embark on a review of its debt control policy with a slew of defaulting municipalities… or even suggesting to scrap existing debt.

The first is surprising in that critics of the power facility have long been of the opinion that Eskom’s lack of debt control has been at the core of its problems.

The Medupi – a Sepedi word that betokens rains soaking parched lands – and Kusile power stations are running about five years behind schedule.

Completion costs are estimated to have ballooned to four times over original budgets.

You do not need to be an accountant to compute that this cannot qualify as sound financial governance.

The defaulting municipalities, who fall under the Salga umbrella, must surely be judged to be equally to blame.

They are the local entities which allowed debt to Eskom to grow from R6 billion in March 2016, to R10.2 billion eight months later, while consumers are understood to owe the municipalities R70 billion.

You call the tune, you pay the piper. Somewhere the cost of feeding the juke box has been either ignored or forgotten.

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