With less than 20 days left until darkness, the municipality urges debtors to settle their accounts
There is still no repayment agreement in place and the municipality seems to be stepping up its debt collecting operations.
HIGHVELD – With less than 20 days left before we will have power outages, the municipality still does not have a new repayment deal in place with Eskom.
Govan Mbeki Municipality owes the national electricity provider close to R400-m for electricity provided to the municipality, and though Eskom and the municipality entered into a repayment agreement in 2016, the municipality did not adhere to the terms of this agreement, causing it to be placed back on the list of defaulting municipalities.
According to Mr Khulu Phasiwe, spokesman for Eskom, there is still time left before 13 March and there is hope that this situation will be resolved.
In the meantime, Council seems to be stepping up their debt collecting efforts.
In a recent press release, the executive mayor, Ms Florah Maboa-Boltman, launched operation Kodiko and told users to pay or be switched off.
“I am serious about settling the Eskom debt that has since accumulated interest and ballooned to R382-m, but the community or consumers owe the municipality R694-million for services.”
Ms Maboa-Boltman explained the municipality experiences a distribution loss of electricity of nearly 50 per cent as a result of electricity theft in various forms.
“This means for every one rand spent by the municipality in procuring electricity, nearly fifty cent is lost which results in a severe revenue loss for the municipality.
“This situation is totally unacceptable and thus the time has come for us to govern for the betterment of our people while we ensure the municipality renders services effectively and in a sustainable manner.
“The time has come for the community to face up to the consequence of their actions.”
The executive mayor said the municipality will no longer be lenient and that tenants who do not pay, will have their electricity switched off.
“Members of the public are informed that the municipality will be going out in full swing to collect all monies due to the municipality and will be switching off all defaulters.”
Coupled with the switching off of electricity, will be the installation of a smart metering system subject to public consultation meetings that will take place in conjunction with ward meetings.
Ms Maboa-Boltman explained why the municipality has taken this zero tolerance stance: “It is the municipality’s intention to avoid the power disruption by Eskom and this humongous task can not be achieved without the cooperation of the community.
“That is why we now ask all consumers who are indebted to the municipality, to take the first step and pay their dues before they are switched off.”
