Eskom said on Wednesday, June 10 that Emalahleni Local Municipality is honouring their repayment commitment.
Things looked a bit shaky on Friday, June 12 when the municipality still needed R13-million to meet their repayment obligation. And a sigh of relief was let out when R48 000 351 was paid on time.
In the past three weeks R233-million was paid to Eskom.
“Your continuous support by paying your current accounts and arrears as well as conserving energy and water will be appreciated to ensure we can maintain meeting our obligations. We are still severely under financial stress and will remain so for some time to come,” Mr Theo van Vuuren, acting municipal manager said.
He and his team have been working non-stop to make sure the deadline was met.
He said the municipality has entered into a 24-month payment agreement with Eskom and has paid the committed amount.
“Going forward, the municipality is expected to comply with the payment agreement conditions, which include payment of accounts in full and on time, and honouring the debt payment terms,” Van Vuuren said.
Payments will be monitored continuously and Eskom reserves the right to implement morning and evening peak interruptions, on a 48-hour notice, if the municipality defaults on the payment agreement at any stage.
“As it is, a winter period consumption is normally higher and we expect the bill for the next two months will exceed R100-million each. We need to do our next capital instalment only in August; therefore we have a bit of a gap to build up reserves,” Van Vuuren said.
“Switch off to keep Emalahleni switched on. Please assist in paying your bills on time and use electricity sparingly, it has become a very expensive commodity,” said Van Vuuren as he urged residents to save on electricity usage.
The municipality has put up a hotline to report land use and water and electricity abuse, in place.
This line will allow anonymous tips which the municipality can then follow up on in the interest of ensuring the reduction in theft and abuse of electricity in the municipality.
“You can also report cases of fraud, illegal connections, people with illegal activities, or other issues which are contributing to the current challenges we experience as city to meet our obligations,” Van Vuuren said.
The cost associated to this is 50c a minute and all calls will be taken seriously and the information will be investigated. The number for the hotline is 31650.
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