Power utility Eskom is calling on Tshwane and Ekurhuleni Metros to urgently settle their electricity debt of a whopping R4.7 billion.
However, the City of Ekurhuleni says it does not owe Eskom anything, citing that this is a move to tarnish the image of the city.
The metros owe this mount as of August 31, Eskom said, despite all the avenues that it had explored to recover what is due to it. Both municipalities have failed to fully honour their payments and to comply with their electricity supply agreements.
The City of Tshwane owes Eskom about R3.2bn which has accumulated over July and August due to erratic payments.
The Ekurhuleni metro’s debt is currently just under R1.5bn.
“The payment patterns by both municipalities have deteriorated to concerning levels that further threaten Eskom’s liquidity, financial performance and sustainability. The erratic payments by the City of Tshwane dating back to 2022 are alarming; also of serious concern is the entrenched practice by the City of Ekurhuleni of settling its account late over the past six months,” said Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena.
The City of Tshwane said it was in financial distress hence the lagging behind on their payments.
“We have been consistent and clear in conveying the reality of our financial situation and stipulating the difficult decisions that need to be carried out by council, the Mayoral Committee and city management to get out of our financial distress. The city’s budget that was adopted by Council in June is underfunded by at least R3bn. So, council also approved a funding plan that includes measures to achieve a funded status within three financial years,” said mayor’s spokesperson Sipho Stuurman.
He said during load shedding, they could not sell electricity and therefore struggle to cover fixed costs associated with the operation of their network.
“So this is nothing new, Eskom releases a statement like this about every month. The city is not in denial about our financial difficulties. In fact, the number one priority of our government in Tshwane is a financial rescue mission,” said City of Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink.
He added: “With our underfunded budget in June, we passed a funding plan that included certain difficult decisions, such as applying for exemption from salary increases, because the fact is that for a number of years now, especially after the lockdown and with the devastating effect that load shedding has on our city, not just the damage to the infrastructure, but the fact that we have to maintain the fixed cost of an electricity business, but we can’t sell electricity in a year that load shedding has consumed more hours than ever before.”
City of Ekurhuleni MMC for Finance Nkululeko Dunga said they did not owe Eskom.
“We do not owe Eskom, in actual fact they owe us overdue accounts as City of Ekurhuleni and we are going to escalate our Operation Siyacima Manje-Nomhlanje Campaign to ensure that we shut them down in services that have been rendered and that they have not paid for.
“They gave us an invoice to the tune of R1.5bn which is the current invoice that we owe to Eskom and this was given to us by Eskom on October 3. And they state in their own statement themselves, that the accounting is due on October 28. So it’s absolutely bizarre why they would actually want to release a statement that seeks to tarnish the image and financial standing of the City of Ekurhuleni,” said Dunga.
He said they had continuously gone to Eskom to say they should have been paying them every 15 days.
“The City of Ekurhuleni has been previously paying Eskom on a 15-day interval. We have shifted that to 30 days in line with the MFMA (Municipal Finance Management Act) in terms of the repayments and the payments towards Eskom,” Dunga said.