Eskom has rejected the City of Tshwane Municipality’s offer to enter into payment settlement arrangements for the R878 million owed to the power utility.
Eskom says the city has failed to pay R908 million which was due on the 17th of last month and only made payments of R10 million on the 23rd of June and R20 million on the 30th of June.
The power utility says the non-payment by the city has contributed negatively to its own increasing overdue debt which is in excess of R46.6 billion. Eskom Senior Manager for Customer Services in Gauteng, Daphne Mokwena says they hope the city will review its position and honour its payments, as Tshwane is the only metro in the country with erratic payments.
“As part of the efforts to recover the debt, Eskom has previously escalated the matter of the city’s erratic payments to the Tshwane Executive Mayor, Randall Williams in a meeting held with him and his leadership team in January 2022. The matter was again escalated to the Executive Mayor now in June, requesting him to assist in ensuring that the city settles the account by 30 June 2022. Out of the eight metropolitan municipalities in the country, the City of Tshwane is the only one with erratic payments.”
Tshwane cuts-off defaulters
In June, the City of Tshwane said it had resumed its revenue collection campaign, popularly known as “Tshwane-Ya-Tima.” This is being done in a bid to recoup R17 billion that is owed to the Metro by government departments, businesses, residents, entities as well as embassies.
“Ten teams headed by senior managers, including the high tension one for large power users have been deployed across the city to effect credit control measures through disconnecting defaulting customers,” says City of Tshwane Spokesperson Selby Bokaba.
He added that this time the campaign will also be targeting prepaid electricity meters that have been tampered with.
