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Emfuleni municipality’s attempt to halt assets seizure over Eskom debt fails

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The High Court in Johannesburg has struck off the roll the Emfuleni Local Municipality‘s urgent application to stop Eskom from continuing to attach its property. This is after the municipality failed to pay its debt to the power utility.

On Tuesday, the Sheriff of the Court removed municipal property to enforce judgment for the non-payment of the over R600 million debt owed to Eskom according to the judgment that was delivered in March 2018.

In the video below, Emfuleni Local Municipality’s property is taken away by the Sheriff: 

The municipality owes Eskom R2.3 billion.

Eskom Spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha says additional summons will be issued to collect the rest of the amount they are owed.

“The Sheriff of the Court is continuing removing or attaching the property belonging to the municipality of Emfuleni in an attempt to recover R615 million of debt owed to Eskom by the municipality and we are in the process of obtaining another court order, which will authorise us to collect on the balance of the R2.3 billion. The operation continues today. The Sheriff is busy attaching property belonging to the municipality.”

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is calling on Gauteng Cogta MEC Lebogang Maile to dissolve the Emfuleni Local Municipality in the Vaal.

In 2018, Gauteng Premier David Makhura announced that the municipality would be placed under administration but then Emfuleni Mayor Jacob Khawe disputed this.

Maile says the seizure of assets will have a serious effect on service delivery and he is planning to meet both Eskom and municipality management on this.

“Here is a case in point where the MEC should be stepping in and place municipality under administration, instead of going after Tshwane. But we know this is an ANC-run municipality that over the past three terms has been failing to deliver the services that people of Emfuleni need,” says DA Gauteng leader John Moody.

 

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