Johannesburg - One of the two Gauteng municipalities facing a blackout by Eskom, for failing to pay its hefty R70 million electricity bill, is pleading poverty and blaming poor revenue collection for its financial woes.
The Westonaria local municipality, which includes mostly agricultural, mining land and few urban areas, including the impoverished Bekkersdal township, has been issued with notice to terminate their electricity supply.
Eskom has notified the top 20 defaulting municipalities, including Westonaria and Randfontein in Gauteng, who are currently indebted to it to the tune of more than R3.6 billion, that they are likely to be affected by electricity supply interruption.
This comes as the national electricity grid is under severe stress and Eskom is seeking a cash injection to ease the strain brought by its heavy reliance on gas and diesel turbines to keep the lights on.
Westonaria’s municipal manager, Thabo Ndlovu, admitted on Friday that the council’s account with Eskom was up to R58m in arrears.
“We have not been defaulting. We have been servicing our debt,” Ndlovu said. “Last year we owed over R70m and now its just under R58m.
“We have debt because of challenges with revenue collection and our small tax base.”
Ndlovu said the municipality was not at risk of a supply cut-off as it had negotiated an agreement with Eskom to pay the outstanding debt.
He conceded the servicing of the debt was also dependent on the revenue that the municipality would be able to collect.
“We have had to re-look at our tariff structure in order to raise revenue and increase our property rates.
“With the additional income we get, we try hard to service the debt.
“We have done a lot of things, including cutting our expenditure, to meet some of our financial obligations.”
Eskom said on Friday that as at March 31 the total municipal arrears debt greater than 30 days was R4.6bn.
Of this amount, the top 20 defaulting municipalities were indebted to Eskom to the tune of R3.68bn for the bulk supply of electricity.
Eskom’s interim chief executive, Zethembe Khoza, said: “Non-payment for electricity undermines Eskom’s statutory obligation to generate and supply electricity to municipalities nationally on a financially sustainable basis.
“We have therefore decided to exercise our right according to the provisions of the Electricity Regulation Act of 2006 and the supply agreement with municipalities, which entitled us to disconnect the supply of electricity to any defaulting municipalities.”
Eskom recognised that the disconnection of electricity supply might cause undue hardship to consumers and members of the community, and might adversely affect the delivery of other services. However, customer disconnection was always its last resort, it said.
Attempts to reach the Randfontein municipality were unsuccessful on Friday.
Eskom said it would publish a list of defaulting municipalities per province by April 30 in local provincial media.
Consumers within the jurisdiction of a defaulting municipality would be given adequate notice and opportunity to make written representations to the utility, it said.
Saturday Star