Cash-strapped Emfuleni Municipality did not pay workers’ salaries after Eskom attached bank accounts due to an outstanding electricity debt of R8 billion. Picture: Simphiwe Mbokazi/African News Agency (ANA)
THE situation at cash-strapped Emfuleni Municipality, headquartered in Vanderbijlpark, has gone from bad to worse as the employees have not received their salaries for September.
This was after Eskom recently attached the municipality’s four bank accounts due to an outstanding electricity debt of R8 billion.
The employees on Friday told the Sunday Independent that they did not receive their salaries for this month.
They said they were also told that the mayor had no plan to resolve the situation.
According to the municipal manager, April Ntuli, the situation will remain unchanged until the matter is resolved in court.
In a letter to Mayor Sipho Radebe on September 25, Ntuli said the municipality requested clarity from the National Treasury with regard to its standing on debt relief. He said the municipality received a confirmation through email on September 23 affirming that no decision had been taken to remove the municipality.
Ntuli said Emfuleni communicated with attorneys, who in turn submitted a supplementary affidavit to court for confirmation.
The letter read: “The courts communicated through our attorneys on records that Eskom has until September 30 at 10:00 to comment or respond, wherein after, by implication, the court will consider the presentation for the release of the judgment. Seeing that this is a long period of waiting, we are continually engaging with Eskom to consider uplifting the amount for the payment of salaries whilst still waiting for the judgment.”
Emfuleni spokesperson Makhosonke Sangweni confirmed that the municipality was still awaiting judgment by the Pretoria High Court. He said a draft agency agreement had been submitted to Eskom for consideration, but they were still dealing with material differences around certain clauses.
“Emfuleni remains committed to working with all stakeholders, in particular Eskom, to find long-lasting solutions to these problems in the interest of Emfuleni consumers and everyone affected. Accordingly, the municipality would like to encourage consumers (residences and businesses) to pay their accounts to sustain services and for ELM to meet its debt obligations to its creditors,” Sangweni said.
Emfuleni has been in a financial crisis since 2018 and was placed under the provincial administration. This led to the municipality’s failure to meet its financial obligations to bulk water and electricity suppliers, causing service disruptions. By 2018, Emfuleni’s debt to Eskom had already ballooned to nearly R1bn.
The municipality’s financial woes were further exacerbated by corruption, mismanagement, and maladministration, worsening an already dire situation.
The situation led to service delivery failures, which were labelled a human rights disaster, as residents suffered frequent power and water cuts, deteriorating road infrastructure, sewage spills and uncollected waste piling up.
As a result, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) has written to Co-operative Governance Minister Velenkosi Hlabisa to explain where the Section 139 Provincial Administration went wrong and what steps would be taken to address the situation.
The party said the failure of the provincial administration to resolve these issues has left the community facing continued governance failures and a further decline in living conditions, making daily life increasingly difficult.
The statement was supported by the DA Gauteng member of the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) committee, Nico de Jager, who said despite the provincial Cogta taking over the administration of Emfuleni in 2018, there has been little to no improvement in the municipality’s financial management and service delivery.
De Jager said: “This action by Eskom will undoubtedly lead to a complete collapse of service delivery in Emfuleni. Residents who have diligently paid their bills will now find themselves without essential services, through no fault of their own.
“The municipality’s inability to access its funds will also jeopardise the payment of salaries to municipal staff, potentially leading to strikes and further deterioration of services.”
De Jager added that the current crisis in Emfuleni was compounded by the ongoing environmental disaster, with raw sewage flowing directly into the Vaal River due to collapsed infrastructure. The failure to pay Rand Water further exacerbates the water crisis in the region.
The auditor-general also painted a bleak picture of Emfuleni in her 2022/23 local government report. The report reveals that the municipality was stuck in irregular and unauthorised expenditure, losses of water and electricity, non-payment of suppliers and unresolved court cases and had run up R598.1 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Gauteng Finance and Economic Development MEC Lebogang Maile, during his meeting with Emfuleni, said the Provincial Treasury recognised that the fiscal and governance challenges that confront the Emfuleni Local Municipality were complex and were informed by both structural and institutional constructs.
Maile said this necessitated a multi-disciplinary, long-term, and sustainable approach to resolving them.
“While the Gauteng provincial government will do everything necessary to aid in the stabilisation of the municipality, using legislative instruments at its disposal, the much-needed turnaround ultimately depends on the political will of the political and administrative leadership of the municipality,” said Maile.
manyane.manyane@inl.co.za
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