Government must help munis indebted to Eskom: Cosatu

File picture: Nadine Hutton, Bloomberg

File picture: Nadine Hutton, Bloomberg

Published Jan 17, 2017

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Johannesburg - National government has a duty to intervene and help municipalities owing billions of rands to Eskom, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Tuesday.

The federation urged government to work with Eskom and the defaulting municipalities to find a compromise, instead of cutting off electricity and plunging many communities into darkness.

"Eskom's decision will have a negative effect on our already struggling economy and contribute to more retrenchments. Cutting electricity may result in businesses such as farms and mines retrenching workers, when we cannot afford to lose a single job," the trade union federation said in a statement.

Cutting power supply would destroy small businesses and force communities to resort to dirty energy, and therefor increase deforestation and pollution, Cosatu said.

"National government cannot allow these municipalities to deal with this problem alone; it has a responsibility of ensuring affordability, especially for poor households. As a result of rising unemployment, incomes for the majority have virtually stagnated in real terms," Cosatu said.

"That makes it hard for households to afford electricity especially at these current prices, where Eskom has been granted ridiculous permission to increase electricity prices by more than 250 percent over the last couple of years."

Eskom would not budge from its decision to cut power supply to defaulting municipalities in the North West, Free State, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape.

Several municipalities entered into payment agreements with the power utility since the weekend, avoiding black outs. Municipalities owe Eskom as much as R10.2 billion, which has increased in the past eight months from R6 billion.

Eskom said in the last five years, the overdue debt had increased tenfold, with the March 2017 forecast being in excess of R12 billion.

African News Agency

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