But agreement was reached late on Tuesday this week that Eskom would temporarily lift the ELM bank attachments on Wednesday to allow payments to proceed.

This follows the direct intervention of Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and ELM Executive Mayor Sipho Radebe on salary payments.

The upliftment of bank attachments came just as municipal unions were reportedly gearing up to take both court and mass action against Eskom on the salary matter.

ELM has funds to pay its normal recipients but Eskom has control over the accounts and again did not relent in time for pay-day January. In December Eskom relented to release late payments only after the personal intervention of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The scuttling of a general debt agreement over the weekend – seen by ELM as “pre-pay-day blackmail” – is the latest in a brinkmanship game between the two warring State entities, resulting in the direct intervention of national Government to pay salaries before Christmas.

The breakdown of an agreement reached late last week over weeks of acrimonious negotiations now centres on further payment to Eskom of another R71-million – over and above R327 million taken by Eskom in December.

Furthermore Eskom also demands that the entire management of ELM’s electricity department and its revenues to be handed over to Eskom – this means Eskom cadres will be deployed to ELM thus allowing even more patronage networks to take root.

Targeting about R300 million recently paid in national Government Equitable Share funding – supposedly ring-fenced for Emfuleni service delivery – to ELM in December, Eskom struck with court attachments on all ELM bank accounts and its vehicle fleet.

To date, an estimated R327 million was taken by Eskom from ELM accounts in December alone, and not including many millions in payments in months prior to the present crisis.

Eskom has for the second month in a row taken surprise action which has resulted in delayed payments of salaries, Third Party and service provider payments due to bank attachments still in place.

However, in a concession to service delivery demands ELM’s seized vehicle fleet was released by Eskom late last week, but at an additional cost of more than R1,7 million to ELM, said Eskom sources.

The first hint of a crisis – after Mayor Radebe last week reported optimstic progress to ELM Council in resolving the deadlock between Eskom and ELM, came over the weekend when neither organisation issued expected media statements on agreement reached.

At time of publication, neither Eskom or ELM had responded formally to repeated  requests for information on an agreement or media statement.