Govan Mbeki Municipality prioritises Rand Water payments over Eskom
Mayor explained that the agreement with Rand Water allows the municipality to receive interest relief for consistently keeping its current account up to date.
The Govan Mbeki Municipality deliberately prioritised payments to Rand Water over Eskom in the 2025/26 financial year to ensure its current water account remained fully paid and to qualify for interest write-offs, Executive Mayor Cllr Nhlakanipho Zuma told councillors during an ordinary council meeting held on July 29.
Zuma said the municipality paid Rand Water R73m in June, despite receiving a monthly bill of only R34m, allowing the municipality to settle its current account for the entire 2025/26 financial year.
“In June, the municipality paid Eskom only R16m because we had to overpay Rand Water to ensure that we were 100% settled for the 12-month period, based on the arrangement we have entered into with Rand Water to ensure that our current account is paid in full,” Zuma said.
He explained that the agreement with Rand Water allows the municipality to receive interest relief for consistently keeping its current account up to date.
“This then allows us to get a refund in the form of a credit of R21m from the water utility because the agreement we have entered into with Rand Water is that, if we keep our current account up to date consistently, it will write off the interest, possibly for the whole financial year,” said Zuma.
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According to Zuma, Rand Water has already written off interest accrued over the past three months.
“This means that, moving forward, the municipality will not be carrying any interest on its Rand Water account as we continue servicing our current account while implementing an arrangement to deal with our historical debt,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zuma acknowledged the frustration of residents in several areas who recently endured prolonged water outages, saying the municipality had been affected by Rand Water’s maintenance programme.
“After Rand Water completed its maintenance programme, areas such as Secunda, Charl Cilliers, parts of Trichardt, Bethal and eMzinoni were affected because we have not yet completed the reservoir project approved by council to provide sufficient backup capacity for Secunda,” said Zuma .
He explained that Secunda is currently supplied through a bypass system and shares its water supply with Sasol.
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“As we are supplying Secunda through a bypass, Secunda draws water together with Sasol. When Sasol increases its water demand, the community feels the impact because Sasol draws significant volumes of water.
“We are not in a position to completely isolate Sasol because it is a National Key Point,” said Zuma.
Zuma said the municipality’s engineering department has attempted to regulate the available water pressure, but some areas continue to experience low water pressure.
“There are still areas struggling with water supply, particularly Secunda Extensions 22 and 23,” said Zuma.
He expressed sympathy for affected residents, adding that the municipality believes the current challenges are linked to the water pressure being received from Rand Water rather than failures within the municipality’s own infrastructure.
