Once established, both water and electricity supply, revenue and infrastructure management will de facto be controlled by Rand Water and Eskom respectively, for three years from implementation with the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM), documentation shows.

This will then allow ELM to manage its crippling debt to Eskom and Rand Water (RW) –  reportedly R6 billion for Eskom and about R1 billion for RW – and infrastructure on a financially sustainable and viable basis.

Almost half of all potable (drinkable) water supplied to ELM by Rand Water is lost through leakages and badly maintained infrastructure.

Neither the water nor electricity process has yet been formally finalised – but ELM and Eskom have only weeks to implement a court-ordered plan on electricity – with the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) -and RW and ELM are far advanced with the new water and sanitation entity.

Water and sanitation employees at ELM and unions have already been officially informed about the move, according to a memo leaked by union sources.

Both electricity and water processes are part of ELM Municipal Manager April Ntuli ‘s plan to address not only the municipality’s crippling debt but to maintain critical infrastructure and massive water and power bleed-offs.

Ntuli is credited in political and business circles for developing an over-arching municipal Masterplan not only for bulk utilities such as water and electricity, but also on sustainable revenue-generation and metering projects , as well as on waste.

In the case of RW, a completely new entity is to be established to manage water and sanitation and, as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) partnership with ELM, is expected to have its own name and corporate identity.

It is unclear whether current employees affected would be transferred en masse or whether a restructuring process with possible job losses would take place.

Metsi-a-Lekoa is believed to have about 200 employees at present out of a total of about 2 200 municipal employees.

Eskom has also confirmed late in December that no finalised electricity deal is yet on the table with ELM. Should this not materialise within weeks, they and the municipality must go back to court.

Rand Water and Eskom will through these two processes in turn pay ELM their appropriate share after ensuring that water and power municipal revenue is used to maintain infrastructure, unlike the present situation where these revenues are used first and foremost to pay salaries and do not reach service delivery.