Prospects of recovering debt owed by municipalities is remote: Eskom

Eskom says the prospects of recovering debt owed to the company by municipalities is remote.

According to the Department of Public Enterprises, municipalities owe Eskom over R40 billion.

The power utility was briefing Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations on its financial and operating progress.

Group Executive for Distribution, Monde Bala, says they are engaging the National Treasury about the debt.

“We are well aware of the state of our municipalities in that some of them the prospects of full recovery is actually non-existent. Our focus now is to say how do we support municipalities first and foremost, to be able to service their current debt and also going into the future to create that capacity with the municipalities so that we create a sustainable (relationship). We are in conversation with National Treasury,” Bala says.

Risk of load shedding

Eskom says by September 2021, there will be a marked reduction on the risk of load shedding.

However, the power outages will not be eliminated permanently.

CEO Andre de Ruyter says there’s maintenance backlog and there’s an elevated risk of load shedding as major units are taken off line for maintenance.

SA losing up to R900 million a day due to Eskom load shedding:

He says some of these units will be back to service by the end of next month.

“These units will return to service by the end of April of this year permanently and by then, we will see a steep change reduction in the risk of load shedding. We will then take out another round of units to further maintenance and by September of this year, we should see a marked reduction but not an elimination entirely of the risk of load shedding. We must point out that we welcome the procurement of additional capacity to the grid,” concludes De Ruyter.