Late afternoon on Tuesday, June 9 R37-million, that forms part of the payment arrangement, was paid over to Eskom.
The current account of R54-million was also settled earlier this week.
It is now a matter of holding thumbs to see if the utility giant will penalize the municipality for late payment.
Residents on Friday, June 5 waited anxiously to see if the municipality met their repayment obligations to Eskom or if they would be subjected to a bulk shut-down. Luckily Eskom did not flick the switch.
In a media statement Eskom said of the top 20 municipalities in arrears, 18 have responded to Eskom’s request for payment by putting payment plans in place. Two municipalities are in a legal process due to non-payment and their matters will be dealt with within the confines of that process.
The top 20 defaulting municipalities make up 90% of the outstanding municipal debt to Eskom.
It is with this in mind that Eskom is announcing the start of interruption of bulk power supply to municipalities who are in arrears and those who have agreed payment plans with Eskom but have now defaulted on these payment plans.
Eskom warned any municipalities who are currently honouring their payment plans but who default in future will immediately be given 48 hours’ notice and be interrupted.
Communities within municipal areas targeted for interruption will be provided 48 hours’ notice in their local media.
It was with a sigh of relief that Acting Municipal Manager Mr Theo van Vuuren said, “I remain positive that we can succeed in this round. As also stated our obligations to Eskom will be on a monthly basis and following the settlement of the first instalment we will immediately be dealing with the current account of May which we received last week. As you will notice that in future any default will lead to a 48 hour notice and bulk interruptions.”
“We are by no ways out of the woods. Future payments to Eskom will mainly be dependant on businesses and households paying their accounts and arrears. Progress this month has been encouraging especially following Operation Hlasela implementation, but the volume of income is still to gain momentum. It remains a concern that we daily still find bridged metres and deliberate attempts to not pay accounts. The tendency to mobilise protest actions to prevent the municipality to inspect properties is a specific concern and should that continue we may be forced to implement power interruptions focusing on such areas until the situation is normalised.”
The Executive Mayor, Cllr Salomi Sithole submitted the annual budget for council approval last week.
“We will be proving an update on it and the main programmes which will be rolled out at a later stage. Of importance is that to address the Eskom issue and to ensure that all participate and also pay for services will be key priorities. We are hopeful that by the time we submit the mid year adjustment budget we would have created capacity to channel much more funding to development projects,” Van Vuuren said.
Municipal customers are encouraged to engage with their supply authorities to get updated information on their municipalities’ arrears situation. To assist municipalities, Eskom will also upload updated information on its website on a regular basis.
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