GMM now owes Eskom more than R4b
The council’s debt to Rand Water ads up to R60m.
The Govan Mbeki Municipality (GMM) now owes Eskom more than R4b.
The Executive Mayor, Nhlakanipho Zuma, told the council on August 31 that the GMM paid the power utility R30m in July.
Zuma also said the municipality owes Rand Water R60m.
He is waiting to hear from the administration if Rand Water agreed to freeze interest and to let the municipality service the account without interest.
“We are positive that Rand Water will freeze their interest charges. We hope the meeting between its board and our administration will yield positive results,” said Zuma.
The DA councillor, Tebogo Sekaledi, said the municipality is in crisis. Sekaledi said the DA has submitted solutions to the Rand Water problem, but they overlooked it.
“It will take three to four council terms for the municipality to solve this problem. We have inherited debt that is impossible for us to solve. Our mechanism needs to change. We have God-given resources, such as groundwater,” said Sekaledi.
“I appeal to the mayor and the mayoral committee to look at our proposal,” he urged.
The EFF councillor Nthabiseng Mthahane said the municipality needs to look in depth at water leaks because this contributes to the water crisis.
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“Another reason why the municipality is unable to collect revenue is infrastructure built without knowing where the water is coming from,” said Mthahane.
Zuma referred to the DA’s proposal and said the municipality first had to raise money for water purifying infrastructure.
According to him, the municipality had to spend more money because they must still pay Rand Water.
Zuma said they needed to look into the municipality’s internal capacity.
“If we have a water loss of about 35% on average, we will not have the capacity to manage a water purification plant.
“This is a challenge that can put us into serious litigations. Most of the municipalities purifying their own water face court challenges for supplying communities with water not suitable for human consumption.
“We have seen a number of these municipalities faced with issues because their water purification quality was not up to standard,” said Zuma.
