Crisis meeting called after Eskom punishes town with load reduction

Endumeni will have to fork out around R25-millon to end the load reduction thrust upon the town by Eskom.

The extended outages, coupled with load shedding, has meant many homes have been without power for 12 hours over 24 hour period.

An emergency meeting today attended by councillors, officials, Eskom representatives and members of the Residents Association heard that there was no payment plan in place to pay off the R79 million owed to Eskom.

In a statement, councillors said:

Good Afternoon All residents
Statement by
Mohamed Saleem Abdool
Ward 7 Councillor
Exco member
Endumeni Local Municipality
After telephonic discussions with Eskom representative Mr.Prashanth Luchman yesterday 23rd December 2023 I can confirm that Endumeni Local Municipality is one of the 45 Municipalities in the country that have been placed on LOAD REDUCTION over and above the loadshedding schedules of Eskom.
Please also note the following:
1.I as the Councillor only became aware of this yesterday when I was in the telecon discussion with the Eskom Representative.
2.There was no communication to us in writing of this implementation.
3.The Municipal Manager, Exco Members, CFO and Mr.Ndima were in a meeting yesterday trying at all costs
to brokerage a deal with Eskom. They were adamant for payments against our outstanding debt of arrears.Last week our Municipality paid over R15m
4.Although we had a payment arrangement in place we were informed that it no more was in place.It was then proposed by Exco that this be taken to a full Council Meeting for deliberations.
5.A Special Council Meeting was held this Morning and resolutions were taken in an attempt to resolve the matter on hand.
6.A proposal to even look at the Legal Route as this was not constitutional and as such has comprised paying residents.
7.Contingecy plans are going to be commencing to resolve our Eskom debt.
8.As of the 28th December 2023 all planning will commence with officials and Councillors and the neccessary implementations there of.
9.Kindly note information posted is credible as this was also presented by me in Council today.
10.Public Participation will also be iniated by me in our ward with meetings called for all residents in our ward.
Finally I wish to confirm that very stringent action will be enforced for all non paying residents who have meters tampered or bypassed and are NOT PAYING.
The final roll out plan will be rolled out and made public next week once formulated.
One can also visit the Endumeni website to gather any information that I might have left out.