Johnathan Paoli
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has said that the ongoing failure of municipalities to settle their accounts with Eskom remains one of the biggest obstacles in the power utility’s return to effective functioning.
Ramokgopa was speaking at the weekly briefing on the implementation of the energy action plan on Monday morning, and he said the municipal debt is currently standing at R64 billion.
“This is undermining the liquidity of Eskom because Eskom has to recover the cost associated with generation and the reticulation and distribution of electricity,” Ramokgopa said.
The minister said he remained skeptical of the ability of municipalities to meet the requirements that the Treasury listed in order to have a portion of their debt written off.
Ramokgopa stressed the reality of the exponential growth of this debt and the influence this will hold over the utility’s recovery.
This follows the announcement by Eskom last week that
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