MBOMBELA – The local municipality has announced that they have managed to settle their outstanding Eskom account. The opposition in Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM) said the deputy chief financial officer, Mr Oupa Mokoena informed them during a meeting on the 2015/16 budget held on Thursday that the arrears account had been settled.
Seven weeks after asking Eskom to clarify MLM’s debt situation, local communications officer Mr Eric Khoza said the council could not disclose the details of its account holders to outside parties.
The mid-year budget report however showed that MLM’s aged creditors at the end of December totalled R230 million. Of this debt for bulk electricity totalled
R130 million. R71 million thereof was within the 30-day payment period with R38 million being between 31 and 60 days old. R8 million was up to 90 days old,
R1 million up to 120 days and R11 million was outstanding for longer.
DA councillor Ms Trudie Grové-Morgan said MLM had reneged on its previous repayment scheme with Eskom, which should have seen its debt settled by the end of October. She had tabled a motion to council during its previous ordinary meeting that electricity payments to MLM forthwith be ring fenced and paid over to Eskom. The motion was adopted.
“For years the DA councillors of Mbombela have fought for the principle that money paid for electricity be used solely for payment to Eskom. This decision simply means that funds collected or allocated for electricity in Mbombela, will not be spent on anything else, but for paying Eskom.”
She added that this should be adopted by all municipalities as poor payments had contributed to the chaos the utility was currently experiencing.
Added to Grové-Morgan’s motion was that of councillor Mr Ken Robertson who had been lobbying that ratepayers who pay on time be rewarded. According to DA caucus leader Mr Jo Koster council had agreed to the principle that residents who paid their bills by the second day of each month receive a one per cent discount on their bill as of July 1.
“We made a difference. We have given constructive input that has been accepted,” he said.
He noted with concern that they were also informed during the meeting that MLM’s spending on capital projects stood at only 42 per cent – with only one quarter left in the financial year. He attributed this to the fact that the end of this month marked two years since MLM last had a CFO in a permanent position.
MLM did not respond to the newspaper’s questions.
- Read more on the municipality’s woes with electricity here.
