Eskom, Renosterberg Municipality case regarding money owed in court end of May

The case between Eskom and the Renosterberg Municipality over millions owed to the power utility will be heard in the Northern Cape High Court on May 27.

Eskom attached the municipal bank accounts to recoup money owed.

The freezing of the account has left the municipality in dire straits leading to non-payment of salaries and poor service delivery.

Mayor of Renosterberg Municipality Andrew Samson says: “This matter has been affecting the municipality for the past seven months almost. It has also put a lot of strain particularly on our employees, because we could not manage to pay them for the last couple of months.

With the assistance of the provincial government we could manage to pay at least salaries for two months, which was the salary bill for November and December and ever since it has been difficult for Renosterberg to render adequate services as per our constitutional mandate.”

The Municipality says it has presented Eskom with a payment plan for the R106 million debt.

Samson says they are waiting to hear Eskom’s response to their proposal.

“We took a council resolution where we have made an arrangement with Eskom, in terms of an affordable payment plan. The first one that we have presented to them is to give them 20% of our equitable share on a quarterly basis, of which they had a problem with. Council then resolved, looking at all the challenges that we have to at least give them R2.5 million per quarter as part of the equitable share and also to surrender all our electricity sales from end-users to Eskom.”