Emalahleni is in trouble

Emalahleni Local Municipality owes Eskom approximately R3.3 billion and the utility giant wants its money.

On October 31 a letter was served on the municipal manager, Mr Sizwe Maisela wherein Eskom threatened to flick the switch to certain areas within the municipality if the amount of approximately R395 million is not paid within 14 days.

It is not the first time Eskom scolds the municipality for not honouring their payment agreement.

In fact, in February 2017 Eskom did interrupt electricity supply to the municipality.

It had devastating effects on the whole community.

Local attorney, Mr Johan Coetzee successfully launched an urgent application on behalf of the Save eMalahleni Action Group in the High Court on Tuesday, December 12, 2017 to stop Eskom from flicking the switch.

Ten months later the Save eMalahleni Action Group obtained an intervention order in the High Court, compelling the Premier of Mpumalanga, to intervene into the municipality’s affairs in terms of Section 139(5) of the Constitution.

As part of the intervention order, the Municipal Financial Recovery Service (MFRS), a division of National Treasury, was ordered to draft a financial recovery plan for the municipality.

According to the Save eMalahleni Action Group, the financial recovery plan that was enforced by the MFRS upon the municiplaity is fatally flawed and that there are no realistic change that this plan will make any contribution to nursing the municipality back towards financial health.

The MFRS failed to consider the reasons for the financial crisis in the municipality and simply used a long-outdated template to compile the recovery plan.

According to Coetzee, the MFRS, failed to recognize that a momentous undertaking such as the nursing of the municipality back to financial health can only be executed with skilled project management, planning and execution.

He added that the community group have now established a joint working committee with the municipality in order to develop a credible recovery plan.

Since the intervention order was granted in 2018, the municipality’s debt towards Eskom escalated with R1.4 billion.

The municipality is now pulling out all the stops to try and get out of this mess.

“The municipality is currently implementing its credit and debt collection,” said municipal spokesperson Mr Lebo Mofokeng.

He said statistics from the credit-control division have indicated that the 19 000 residents in the western area have the highest debt to the municipality and very low cut off action is occurring.

The 3 000 consumers in the Eastern part of the city have a debt in comparison to the Western area, and yet offer much less resistance to the cut off action.

The cut off action has proven to be very effective in past events.

The municipality is currently attempting to recoup more money from the defaulting residents in a massive manner and hope for a drastic response in payment.

The scheduled programme will include a bulk cut off, in areas with a very low payment rate and unless payment of 50% of that area improves, power will not be restored.

These areas include Phola, Rietspruit, Klarinet Ext 8, Empumelelweni, Wilge and Vosman.

“Normal cut off will also be intensified in all other areas as per plan and in an event, the community resists the employees of the council to cut off and engage in illegal connections, the area will be subjected to a bulk cut off,” Mofokeng said.

There will be areas that will be subjected to a seven-hour load shedding to force the residents to pick up the payment rate.

These areas include Klarinet, Klarinet 3, 4 and 6, Hlalanikahle 1, 2, 3 and 4 and Kwa-Guqa Extension 18.

Unrest has already erupted in Rietspruit because of the bulk cut-off of electricity.

Residents took to the main entrance of the village and threw stones at cars passing by.

It seems that if the sun sets in Mpumalanga everyone will be in the dark as Mpumalanga municipalities’ Eskom debt has shockingly escalated from R990 million to R7 billion within a space of three years.

In December 2016 the debt was R990 million.

By February 2019 it stood at R5 billion.

It shockingly increased seven-fold in the last three years to over R7 billion as of July 31 this year.

In addition, for the month of July the interest on this Eskom account was R1 billion.