The Mpumalanga Provincial Treasury says it’s disappointed that municipalities entered into agreements to pay Eskom their electricity debt and later reneged, leading to an increased debt.
This after the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the province, revealed that the amount owed to Eskom by different municipalities, has increased from R900 million to over R8 billion by the end of March this year.
Spokesperson for the Department of Finance, Jonas Letshela, says they assisted the municipalities with financial recovery plans to be able to settle the debt.
“It is very regrettable that municipalities are defaulting on payments with the creditors and especially Eskom. As a Provincial Treasury we established a provincial task team to be able to assist municipalities on how to respond to the challenges that they are facing. Some of the challenges that the municipalities are experiencing with regards to paying Eskom is because there is so much loss and municipalities are not able to control the loss that happens as results of illegal connections and they are losing a lot of money,” says Letshela.
