Emalahleni’s financial recovery plan is not even on page two and the latest outstanding debt figures turn back to page one.
Emalahleni Local Municipality is not making any progress on its outstanding debt.
READ MORE HERE: In 2021 the Eskom bill touched on R5b.
The municipality owes Eskom R7.6b, Anglo Operations for bulk water R65.9m, Eskom Welge for bulk water R7.3m, the Department of Water and Sanitation for bulk water R232m, and Glencore Operations for bulk water R17.9m.
#Eskomdebt Emalahleni Municipality now owes Eskom a staggering R3.5 billion. A breakdown of the figures does not reflect the good standing of payment agreement reached between the municipality and Eskom. @WITBANK_NEWS @ZitaGoldswain
— Zita Goldswain (@ZitaGoldswain) March 19, 2020
In 2020 the municipality owed Eskom 3.5b. These figures show that the municipality is showing signs of weakness when it comes to revenue enhancement strategies.
WITBANK NEWS asked former local councillor and political analyst, Mr Clive Hatch what he thought about Emalahleni Local Municipality's budget.https://t.co/14OGtZLhfb @WITBANK_NEWS @ZitaGoldswain
— Zita Goldswain (@ZitaGoldswain) May 31, 2020
The Executive Mayor of Emalahleni, Clr Conny Nkalitshana admitted on Tuesday, April 18 that the municipality is struggling to implement a credit control policy due to community resistance.
In August 2022 she sacked Johan Coetzee Attorneys from debt collection services after a mass protest brought the municipality to a standstill the week before.
Nkalitshana during a media briefing shortly afterwards said, “The municipality will and must remain the custodian of debt collection.”
One in which they clearly fail.
READ MORE HERE:
Local attorney and firm no longer middleman for Emalahleni Local Municipality
Over the past few days, the municipality introduced its drafts for the annual budget and Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for 2023/2024.
The municipality is presenting the budget on an unfunded budget. An unfunded budget is when you plan to spend money, but you don’t know where, or if there will be money to pay for it.
For the coming financial year, she said high distribution losses on electricity and water and the unemployment rate of 36.9% are some of the main challenges the proposed budget faces.
The draft budget was prepared on a payment rate of 70%, whereas the actual payment rate at the end of February was 61%.
Nkalitshana highlighted the wards that have a payment rate below 10% and included Ward 1, Ward 2, Ward 3, Ward 4, Ward 15, and Ward 28. Ward 34 is the ward that wins the accolade for best payment rate with 97%. This includes households and businesses.
SEE CLR NKALITSHANA’S ADDRESS HERE:
For the consumer, there is some bad news as tariffs are increasing by 6.1% on average for indigents, 10.6% on average on a normal household, and 10.4% on high-consumption accounts.
For the full story get your copy of next week’s WITBANK NEWS.
What is your opinion about the proposed budget?
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