Municipalities in debt to Eskom will experience peak-hour power outages

File image: IOL

File image: IOL

Published Sep 21, 2017

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CAPE TOWN - Eskom has announced that it will be interrupting power supply during September and October 2017 to municipalities who did not honour their debt settlement arrangements.

According to Eskom, out of 62 payment arrangements made with defaulting municipalities, at the end of May 2017 - only 20 municipalities were honouring the payment arrangements. It is said that in June the situation got worse with overdue debt increasing to R11.54 billion.

Eskom says its executive committee in June took a decision to issue out 58 default letters and these were followed up with 22 public notices published in July and August.

"The public notices in the local newspapers give ordinary citizens and the business community the opportunity to provide input to Eskom, but also to engage their municipality on why it is not paying the Eskom account," Eskom's statement reads.

The power utility further says it has exhausted all other mechanisms intended to urge municipalities' cooperation, hence resorted to power supply interruption to the municipalities in question. 

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"Eskom understands the impact that its actions will have on members of the public, and as such, we plan to focus on implementing interruptions rather than complete disconnection," Eskom revealed.

- BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE

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