Emfuleni municipal employees and councillors were paid on time this month after intensive negotiations with Rand Water (RW), which had last week attached the bank accounts of the local authority over billions in unpaid debt.

Now, RW and the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) are looking towards the implementation of a new agreement and restructuring of their functioning to avoid future situations of this kind.

ELM has confirmed salaries were paid on time – June 25.

Political sources said severe pressure on RW with its own financial year-end had led to its decision last week to attach ELM bank accounts.

The attachments reportedly took place last week already, leading to severe political criticism of ELM which allegedly did not inform Council members about the development.

Employees were earlier bracing themselves for severe financial disruptions as has happened  several times over the past few years due to bank attachments by both RW and Eskom.

RW and ELM have already received approval for a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) re-organisation of its entire water management sphere but this has not yet taken place despite approval being granted recently by the National Treasury.

Once implemented, this will place ELM water infrastructure and revenue management on a completely new basis – similar to the ground-breaking move which placed ELM electricity management on a new footing through appointing Eskom as ELM’s agent.

ELM says it is still awaiting its formal authorisation letter from National Treasury on the SPV approval, whilst RW has reportedly already received its authorisation letter.

An entirely new management structure with its own name and CEO is envisaged in terms of the RW/ELM SPV.