SEDIBENG. –  It does not rain, but it pours for the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM)!

The Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) has assured residents that it will continue to engage Eskom to find a way to deal with challenges of revenue through the existing Inter-governmental Relations (IGR) processes.

This follows last week’s ruling by the Pretoria High Court that the national electricity supplier, Eskom must take over the electricity business of the ELM with consumers paying the power utility directly in terms of an “agency agreement”.

The ruling, which Sedibeng Ster is in possession of, was handed down last week and revealed that the municipality, which owes Eskom about R3.5 billion, is in a “state of disaster”.

The Pretoria High Court said that while the ELM had collected R4.5 billion from electricity consumers (a collection rate of about 90%), mismanagement, maladministration, and a failure to keep the electricity business separate from its other affairs had resulted in “ballooning debt”.

“Not only is the debt gigantic in scale but it is also dynamic. It grows with every month … Its payments due to Eskom is hundreds of millions of rands every month. The scale of the debt has given rise to a state of disaster so grand … the court finds that Emfuleni has to yet realistically confront the state of disaster it has created,” the judges said.

The court said the case involved more than money; it threatened Eskom’s ability to provide electricity to the rest of the country. Emfuleni claimed that it “lacked the capacity to switch off the power” during load shedding, which Eskom said could result in the collapse of the national grid and a national black-out.

The court ordered the ELM to appoint Eskom as its service delivery agent to perform all functions and services relating to the municipality’s electricity business on behalf of the municipality. The court judgment also comes after the municipality failed to adhere to an order issued in November 2018, where relief was granted to eight ELM industrial customers to pay Eskom directly.

“Eskom as a responsible organ of the state intends to comply with this order and looks forward to working with Emfuleni to ensure that service delivery becomes a core focus. The partnership between the power utility and municipality will benefit the customers, stakeholders, and community at large,” said.

Meanwhile, the ELM said that it courteously welcomes the ruling by the High Court and that it has been on record with its Eskom account payment challenges, ballooning debt, and municipal account attachment threats by the power utility to recover money owed to it.

“Since the first High Court order was issued on 18 November 2018, the municipality has been struggling to keep up with payments due to the unshakable historical debt owed to Eskom. Based on affordability, the municipality has been paying the Eskom current account however, this had little to no impact on the overall debt owed due to interest.

“Emfuleni residents must rest assured that the municipality will continue to engage Eskom to find a way to deal with the challenges of revenue through the existing IGR process. We remain committed to serving the people of the ELM by fulfilling all legal and constitutional obligations.”