Uncertainty reigned on the issue over the weekend following a meeting Friday between ELM and Rand Water – but an arrangement was apparently decided to allow month-end April salary payments to go ahead as well as third-party payments such as medical aid, said Rand Water sources.

Neither ELM nor Rand Water has formally confirmed the latest bank attachment by the bulk water utility service provider but high-level discussions are believed to be ongoing.

But on Monday, an ELM spokesperson would only say that discussions between Rand Water and ELM on the issue were ongoing, without specifically confirming whether the bank attachments had been affected.

Late salary payments for ELM workers and officials – and much-abused service providers – have plagued ELM since December 2022 when Eskom not only attached the local authority’s accounts but also seized its entire vehicle fleet.

Service delivery in Emfuleni ground to a halt and the wrangle became grounds for serious conflict between the municipality and Eskom only mitigated by the direct and personal intervention of State Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The latest attachment crisis is a baptism of fire for ELM’s newly-appointed Municipal Manager April Ntuli, although he is by now a veteran of the bulk service attachment wars that have been raging with Eskom/Rand Water for several years

Ntuli was acting Municipal Manager for four months before his formal appointment at the beginning of April and a senior executive official at the municipality before that.

No sustainable debt plan has been announced on ELM/Eskom debt of more than R6 billion either and it is possible that Eskom will still seek to attach further funds from the embattled municipality.

However, it is believed that ELM is seeking a political solution to its crippling debt – and recurring bouts of bank attachments – to both Eskom and Rand Water as this debt is essentially being serviced by grant funding of the national government and which is supposedly ring-fenced for service delivery.

One option that ELM is considering to remove its crippling debt burden is to apply to the National Treasury for debt relief on especially R6 billion still owed to Eskom.

ELM is considered well placed for favourable consideration by Treasury due to stipulations that smart metering be rolled out throughout municipal regions to counter massive non-payment for especially electricity and increasing illegal connections.

However, strict credit control enforcement will be required by Treasury – with about R5 billion owed to the municipality by business and residents – but ELM is already home to the most advanced smart meter programme in Gauteng, run by service provider BXC.

Smart metering to replace the corrupt billing system and usage estimation by ELM is also a requirement of Treasury to write off R77 billion Eskom debts accumulated by municipalities in SA.