Business Reporter.
Eskom says the City of Tshwane’s (CoT’s) electricity debt has once again ballooned to R1.4 billion after a series of short payments and non-payments over the last several months.
The power utility said that the CoT’s debt exacerbates the cash flow crisis it faces, where it is owed around R57 billion from non-paying customers.
Tshwane short-paid its November 2022 bill of R680 million and also did not pay R780 million for its December 2022 account, Eskom said.
Although Eskom engaged with the CoT on numerous occasions to settle its November account by December 31 2022, the bill remains unpaid.
“Eskom does not have the financial capacity to finance the CoT’s operations and calls on the city to do right by its residents and pay the bulk electricity account to enable Eskom to continue supplying electricity to the city,” Eskom said.
Eskom approached the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) to mediate in the resolution of the CoT’s poor payments that continue to spiral out of control. The Public Finance Management Act requires that institutions recover what is owed to them, hence Eskom sought the intervention of Cogta in the matter.
The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) states that institutions must recover what is owed to them, which was why Eskom approached CoGTA.
Eskom said that the mediation process was in line with section 41(2) of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act 13 of 2005 in August 2022, when Eskom initially declared a dispute.
Earlier this month, the CoT was approached by Eskom to settle its long outstanding invoice for November 2022, but no solution was found.