TOMORROW’S meeting between the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality and Eskom will determine whether the power utility will forge ahead with periodical power cuts as per the recent notice.
Eskom published a notice to interrupt the power supply in Komani and Tarkastad, which both fall under the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, over a debt of more than R200 million for bulk electricity.
Giving background to the looming power cuts, Eskom said the state-owned power generator had published notices to disconnect the local authority from the grid. A month later the two parties entered into a payment deal which saw Eskom suspending the planned power cuts.
But “Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality has failed to adhere to the terms and conditions of the respective agreements mentioned. Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality has failed to pay the debt and is failing to pay the current account despite Eskom continuing to provide supply,” read the notice.
According to Eskom, apart from the debt owed by the municipality, the local authority does not pay its current monthly electricity usage in full and the debt is growing by approximately R30 million per month.
“Based on the above conduct of Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, Eskom intends interrupting the bulk supply of electricity as from November 26, 2019,” said Eskom in the notice.
Even though in the notice it said the power cuts would be implemented periodically, the power utility, which is having financial problems of its own, announced that it reserved the right to disconnect the municipality entirely and indefinitely should the electricity debt situation not improve.
Mayor for Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, Luleka Gubhula, confirmed in a council meeting on Tuesday that the municipality had received correspondence from Eskom.
Gubhula said they had scheduled a meeting with Eskom on Friday, November 1 where they’d negotiate another method of repayment to mitigate the planned power shedding. The power issue was raised by DA’s councillor, Zuko Mandile, as a matter of concern even though it wasn’t part of the agenda for the day.
“It is true that Eskom served us a notice to interrupt supply to the municipality and we are taking this very seriously.
“As we speak we will be having a meeting with Eskom to try to find a way out of this,” said Gubhula.
The municipality’s inability to pay its electricity bill has always been attributed to low revenue collection and power theft.
A revenue enhancement strategy was tabled and adopted by council a year ago and a private company was appointed to assist with the collection but that, too, didn’t yield the intended outcome as the municipality still finds itself with an alarmingly high unpaid electricity bill.
Businesses have also expressed their concerns about the looming power cuts, which have a potential to cripple the already limping local economy.
During the “Taking Legislature to the People” programme, which sat in Komani last week, Inxuba Yethemba and Enoch Mgijima local municipalities’ struggle to pay Eskom reflected as a worrying factor on the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs committee’s report.
