The Enoch Mgijima local municipality says it plans to meet Eskom management in January over its nearly R1bn debt after the power utility implemented “load reduction” to the area on top of the rolling blackouts being experienced by the rest of the country.
Ratepayers in the municipality, and five others in the province which collectively owe R3bn, will experience extended blackouts.
Now, after panic from residents and business people, new mayor Madoda Papiyana wants a sit-down with Eskom top brass to work out a deal on the municipality’s payments.
Papiyana said Eskom should have engaged municipalities individually before deciding to enforce load reduction.
He said the Constitutional Court judgment, handed down on Friday, favoured all the municipalities that owed Eskom, and meant Eskom should back off.
Residents are complaining they are experiencing both load-shedding and load reduction.
On Friday, the Concourt ruled in favour of the Ngwathe municipality in the Free State and Lekwa municipality in Mpumalanga.
These municipalities took Eskom to court and won an interdict preventing it from implementing load reduction.
This was in the same week Eskom said it would implement load reduction in five Eastern Cape municipalities — Enoch Mgijima, King Sabata Dalindyebo, Raymond Mhlaba, Inxuba Yethemba and Beyers Naudé.
“The court outcome favours all the municipalities, with the expectation that Eskom [cannot go against] the decision of the court,” Papiyana said.
“A court decision is binding on all those affected. We are expecting Eskom to be bound by the rules of the court and not implement [load reduction].”
He said they had an arrangement with Eskom on their repayment because the money they received as equitable share from the national government was less than the debt they owed Eskom.
“If we just paid that debt, it means in that particular year there would be no services at all ... hence we had an arrangement
“If we just paid that debt, it means in that particular year there would be no services at all ... hence we had an arrangement.
“But in January I will have a meeting with Eskom so that we can find a suitable way to deal with this debt.”
He said the main problem with the municipality’s ballooning debt was interest incurred because of late payments.
“The court has ruled in favour of communities because it is communities that are faced with difficulties.
“It’s December, you can’t do that at this time of the year. People have bought Christmas groceries. When you do that you are killing them.”
But residents and businesses are not happy with the municipality.
Some ratepayers have taken to social media complaining about the extended power outages they are experiencing.
Komani businessman and councillor Ken Clark, who started soft drink company Twizza, said though they had experienced load reduction for a day or two, they were now having normal load-shedding.
“We cannot do business with load reduction. It’s just not possible,” he said.
“If we add load-shedding and load reduction, we are out of business — it’s as simple as that.
“We were going to have four hours of load reduction.”
He blamed municipalities and the government for the problem of nonpayment of Eskom, saying municipalities’ nonpayment was a contributing factor to the current rolling blackouts.
Adre Bartis, from the Komani branch of the Border-Kei Chamber of Business, said residents and businesses had experienced load reduction the entire Christmas weekend.
“We had load reduction on Christmas Day when nobody had load-shedding.”
She said they were hit with power outages three to four times a day and Clark’s experience might be because load reduction did not affect the industrial area.
Last week, residents took to the municipality’s Facebook page to vent their anger after Papiyana posted a Christmas message.
One comment reads: “Are you going to address why we have load reduction on top of load-shedding??
“Or is it not a priority because you have no strategy to pay off the Eskom debt that is reaching almost a billion??
“We need realistic plans and time frames as to when you are going to address issues which affect us ...”
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