Mayor on the red carpet over Eskom debt
Several businesses found themselves in the dark earlier this week when the municipality started flicking the switch to businesses who owe the municipality more than R60-million, churches that owe more than R30-million and residents who are in arrears.
R40-million, that is how much government departments owe to Emalahleni Local Municipality.
Several businesses found themselves in the dark earlier this week when the municipality started flicking the switch to businesses who owe the municipality more than R60-million, churches that owe more than R30-million and residents who are in arrears.
With the Eskom bulk power interruptions knocking on the front door, Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza summoned all the municipalities that have challenges with settling their Eskom account to find a lasting solution on this matter which has dragged on for a very long time.
All the executive mayors, including the Executive Mayor of Emalahleni Cllr Lindiwe Ntshalintshali had to report to the premier’s office on October 17 to give a full account of the current situation.
The premier ordered provincial and national government departments, which owe municipality’s money to cough up and settle their accounts.
“This provincial government must pay every municipality they owe, we should not be part of the problem,” he said.
The billing systems also came under the spotlight and the premier called on the municipalities to improve their billing systems in order to improve on their revenue collection.
Premier David Mabuza.
The premier added that municipalities needed to decide on whether they still wanted to continue distributing electricity on behalf of Eskom or consider surrendering the function.
“You are running this ‘spaza’ shop at a loss. People steal electricity and you battle with revenue collection. If you want to sustain this business, you must deal with illegal connections.
“Running a municipality and selling electricity is a business, if you do not pay your service providers, they will not trust you and you will have a credibility problem. Eskom is a business, it cannot give electricity for free,” said Mabuza.
The premier met with Eskom on Monday October 23 to find a lasting solution. By the time of going to press no details were available.
The municipality’s current account on Tuesday, October 24 was R133-million and their total debt R1.3-billion.
“We have a mountain to climb but we are confident that we will conquer if business, government and residents pay,” Mabuza said.
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