The mayor of the troubled municipality wants Eskom not to cut off electricity but the power utility says it will definitely do so if owed money is not paid.
eMalahleni mayor Lindiwe Ntshalintshali on Monday this week met with Eskom officials to discuss the issue of the money owed to the power utility by the municipality.
The municipality owes at least over a billion rand to Eskom in electricity debts.
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Eskom sells electricity to local municipalities who in turn sells it to residents.
The municipality then takes this money and pays Eskom for the power.
Lately, there have been increasing calls for residents to buy electricity directly from Eskom, citing the corruption and failing municipal leadership.
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Negotiations between officials led by Ntshalintshali and manager Theo van Vuuren continued in Mbombela the whole of Monday this week but Eskom is reportedly not willing to compromise on its threat to cut electricity if at least R600 million is not paid by the municipality.
If the municipality fails, power in Mpumalanga’s richest municipality will be cut off.
The municipality itself had threatened to cut power to residents who owe the municipality if they don’t settle their debts as soon as possible.
Both Ntshalintshali and van Vuuren have urged businesses and the community to pay for their services to avoid a situation in which the whole area will go dark.
“We are busy finalising our final proposals to Eskom,” van Vuuren said.
“We believe that we have a reasonable proposal and as community we can manage to move to a sustainable solution,” he said.
“We are however not guaranteed of success but will do our best,” he added.
(edited by ZK)
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