Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, says rising municipal debt is undermining Eskom’s liquidity.
He says the municipal debt which currently stands at R64-billion is also affecting Eskom’s ability to invest in generation infrastructure.
Ramokgopa was delivering his weekly update on the implementation of government’s Energy Action Plan.
“As part of the interventions that National Treasury is proposing for purposes of writing off the debt to Eskom, part of the requirements is that first municipalities have to address the issues of illegal connections and secondly, is municipalities have to commit themselves to allowing that we have a prepaid meter system and the dispensation of the prepaid meter system and thirdly, they have to be diligent payers consecutively over 12 months.”
In June, the National Council of Provinces approved Eskom’s Debt Relief Bill by 30 votes against 18, with no abstentions.
The Bill provides for the Treasury to give Eskom R254 billion over three years.
While some of the opposition parties argued that the bill will not address the challenges facing Eskom, the African National Congress countered that it was necessary to bring the power utility’s debt to manageable levels.
‘On track’
During one of his media briefings in August, Ramokgopa reiterated that government is on track to keep the promises it made with regards to the country’s Energy Action Plan.
“For us that is a big positive. So, about 8 of these actions that the president had set out in the Energy Action Plan- we have completed those actions. 20 of these actions are on track which means that we are in keeping with the timelines that we have set for ourselves, the timelines that we made in public so we remain on track. If anything, we would want to deliver much earlier than promised but the measure is around what was the initial timelines that we set for ourselves and how are we doing against those timelines.”
