Eskom and Rand Water accounts payment raises eyebrows among GMM councillors

The Eskom and Rand Water accounts raised eyebrows among councillors in the Govan Mbeki Municipality during a council meeting held on March 31.

After the municipality’s executive mayor, Nhlakanipho Zuma reported on the municipality’s standing regarding both accounts, some councillors disagreed with Zuma’s report.

Zuma informed the council the municipality committed to pay R7.5m per week to Rand Water and R6m per week to Eskom.

Some councillors disputed Zuma’s presentation when they discovered some receipts were missing from the report. This made it impossible to verify whether they made payments to both. DA councillor Hlohololo Madumisa stated the report raised many questions and was unreliable.

“We are talking about millions, not cents. The report has many discrepancies -for example, the receipts do not correspond with the amounts paid to both accounts.

“Some payment receipts are missing. It is better to refer back the report and brought to the council when corrected. How can we approve a report with R13.5m missing? Where did it go, and why is it not accounted for?” asked Madumisa.

DA councillor Portia Mpatlanyane also said the report was misleading, as the payment to Rand Water was R15m, not R22m, while the payment to Eskom was R12m, not R18m.

“This shows a discrepancy of R7.5m in the Rand Water account and R6m in the Eskom account. The missing money for both accounts combined is R13.5m, which is unaccounted for,” said Mpatlanyane.

ALSO CHECK: Robbers strip land owner in Sundra of more than just belongings

Zuma said the issues raised by councillors were misleading, stating they would circulate the missing payment receipts to councillors.

“I must indicate we will not tolerate what is happening in our administration. That is not correct. We must note, as a concern, the discrepancies in the report that need to be rectified by the administration.

“As the council made payment agreements with Eskom and Rand Water, we realize our payment to Eskom currently stands at R18m, less than what we expected as a monthly payment to the power utility. We are appealing to our administration to pull up their socks and live up to our obligations,” said Zuma.

He added everyone needs to take responsibility and put more effort into revenue collection rather than leaving everything to the municipality’s administration.

“At this moment, we do not have a crisis with either the Eskom or Rand Water accounts. We have met all commitments we made, except for last month, when we could not make a full payment as per our commitment,” he concluded.

ALSO CHECK: Impromptu school search in eMzinoni yields 140 cellphones, dagga