Every month, the Tshwane metro has difficulty paying Eskom on time.
The metro owes Eskom R1.3-billion a month on average for electricity.
Its consistent late payments recently landed it in hot water with the utility and this risks residents being without power.
Last week, Eskom said it was considering disconnecting electricity to the region because the municipality owed it R1.6-billion in payments due on August 17.
Eskom, however, said the disconnection would be implemented after it has considered public opinion.
Eskom said it would communicate, as required by the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA), through the media and other platforms its intention as well as the reasons to disconnect the city.
This, it said, would give the members of the public and any stakeholders that might be affected by the supply interruption, the opportunity to make submissions with motivation for or against the intervention.
The utility said it would then consider all the submissions before it decides whether to switch off Tshwane, leaving locals in the dark or not.
In the past months, the municipality has consistently had problems paying Eskom on time.
In July, the metro was under pressure when it did not pay Eskom R878-million on time.
By Wednesday last week, it had only paid R180-million of its R1.6-billion debt.
Eskom operations and maintenance manager Daphne Mokwena said the metro’s failure to make timeous payments contributed negatively to its increasing overdue debt of more than R46.6-billion.
This debt has been cited as one of the major reasons for load-shedding and the utility’s inability to maintain its infrastructure; hence, it started its aggressive debt recovery tactics.
The Nyandeni municipality in the Eastern Cape had its power switched off by Eskom for non-payment.
“The metro’s persistent failure to honour its payments places a huge burden on Eskom to continue providing it with electricity,” Mokwena said.
Tshwane customers who wish to prevent being cut from the power supply and get electricity directly from Eskom cannot because “Eskom does not have a licence to supply electricity to the City of Tshwane’s customers”.
Tshwane finance MMC Peter Sutton promised that the metro would pay up but did not say when.
Sutton said the outstanding amount was for July and all prior debt was paid.
He said the payments delays were due to the metro and Eskom using financial systems that were not aligned.
“On average, residents pay the metro in a 60-day cycle while Eskom expects payment in 15 days.
“The metro has zero cash reserves to bridge the gap; therefore, this results in the current situation,” Sutton said.
The municipality previously blamed its financial problems on low revenue collection.
In February, it embarked on an aggressive revenue campaign to collect the R17-billion it is owed by residents, businesses and government departments.
*Please note this article has been amended.
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