MUNICIPAL DEBT
Eskom debt-recovery team ‘makes progress’ with councils
Municipalities are under enormous pressure due to non-payment of electricity bills
A task team set up to tackle the nonpayment of Eskom debt by municipalities has made significant progress, Cooperative Governance Minister Des van Rooyen said on Thursday. Municipalities are under enormous pressure due to non-payment of electricity bills. Earlier this year, Eskom threatened to cut power to several municipalities that owed it just more than R10bn in debt. Delivering his budget vote speech in Parliament, Van Rooyen said lots of work had been done in the past few months to deal with the excessive growth of municipalities’ debt, to the tune of R117bn as at December 31 2016. Van Rooyen said national departments owe municipalities R2.3bn, while provincial departments owe R3.1bn. The department was gravely concerned about the excessive growth of debt owed to municipalities. The cash-flow problems faced by various municipalities have made it difficult for them to deliver services and pay creditors, including Eskom. "The work of the national task team on government debt is m...
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