ANC Ekurhuleni says Eskom and Rand Water should scrap historical debt

The ANC caucus at the Ekurhuleni metro has called on power utility Eskom and Rand Water to scrap irrecoverable debt from its books.

The party said the impact of Covid-19 and increasing unemployment made it impossible for residents to settle their municipal accounts.

ANC members from the DA-led council and communities embarked on a march to the city’s customer care canters on Wednesday, demanding that municipal debt owed by residents be slashed by 75 percent.

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According ANC whip Jongizizwe Dlabathi, the metro is owed R18 billion by residents, which included historical debt.

“This action we are undertaking today stems from meetings between councillors and communities, who have expressed that they were unable to pay.

“Many have lost their jobs and have to live with their services being cut off because of non-payment. We want a write off of 75% of debt from all municipal accounts,” he said.

He added that those who have an income and are able to pay should do so.

“The debt write off would enable the metro to reboot the payment system. A lot of the overdue accounts are over 90 days in arrears. It has been proven that previous recovery methods have failed to recover the owed monies,” Dlabathi said.

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According to power utility Eskom, municipal debt continue to increase. Ekurhuleni was one of the worst offenders in Gauteng with a staggering R1,7 billion owed. The metro paid R530 million in February, and has R544 still outstanding.

Asked how the municipality would pay Eskom and Rand Water if it does away with most of the debt, Dlabathi said the two utilities should consider scrapping debt owed to them.

“Eskom and Rand Water should scrap the debt, and of course, they can only do that after having proved that they have applied all mechanisms to recover the money owed, but failed. Cancel the debt that cannot be recovered.”

The city, said Dlabathi, has written off R1b debt before in 2019.

“Those who claim that the ANC caucus is demanding debt cancelation only because it is no longer in charge of the administration need to check municipal reports. We are doing this for the suffering residents, this has nothing to do with politics.”

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