Pretoria - Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Minister Des van Rooyen says municipalities must always service their bulk accounts to avoid inconveniencing residents who pay for services.
The Minister on Tuesday responded to the challenges facing some municipalities regarding their Eskom accounts.
“It is important for municipalities across the country to always service their bulk accounts so that they do not prejudice those community members within their space who pay for their services,” said Minister Van Rooyen.
COGTA said despite a number of interventions being put in place to curb the debt levels, including monitoring the implementation of action plans, some municipalities are continuing to default from the COGTA brokered agreement with Eskom.
To this effect, Eskom issued the defaulting municipalities with supply agreement breach notices, which were to be followed up by disconnection notices.
Eskom informed communities within the affected municipalities that there will be disconnections and how this will be done.
Subsequent to that, Afriforum took Eskom to court in a bid to stop the power utility from cutting electricity. However, the court ruling supported Eskom’s resolution to cut electricity to the defaulting municipalities.
COGTA said it has engaged all municipalities that owe Eskom from February to April 2016.
The ministry said the outcomes of these engagements were an agreement with short, medium to long term actions.
In the short term, Eskom and municipalities entered into a credible payments agreement to service their debts.
The ministry engaged in discussions with Eskom on its intention to disrupt power supply to the owing municipalities and agreed that the respective provincial governments should be appraised ahead of the 16 January 2017 deadline.
Minister Van Rooyen met with the North West Premier and the Eskom executive last week to look at how many municipalities were still in arrears and a possible solution.
“At the time of the meeting, the province had already held a meeting with the respective municipalities on 22 December 2016 to discuss the matter. Most municipalities in the province have honoured their December payments,” said the ministry.
The ministry held another meeting on Friday with the office of the Free State Premier and the provincial COGTA representatives at Megawatt Park. It emerged in that meeting that the provincial government had already discussed the matter and some of the municipalities were paying.
Eskom set to cut power in non-paying municipalities
According to the ministry, Eskom reiterated that power supply will be interrupted in all municipalities that would not have honoured their due accounts.
“The agreement reached with the owing municipalities was that they should pay arrears and the current Eskom account between the 12 and 15 January 2017.
“The Accounting Officers and Executing Authorities of municipalities have the responsibility to ensure that municipalities honour their agreements that they entered into with Eskom and other credit providers in their space,” said the ministry.
Minister Van Rooyen said the ministry is confident that provincial governments and municipalities will ensure that the agreement is respected and all actions agreed upon are finalised.
“We urge municipalities to pay for the services they have received. It is the right thing to do.” - SAnews.gov.za
