Eskom’s list of big thieves-Hanno Labuschagne

[Nat Quinn]

The top 20 municipalities with overdue Eskom bills owe the power utility around R55.8 billion, with the three biggest defaulters owing over R7 billion each.

Municipal electricity debt has been a major headache for the power utility in the past few years.

By November 2023, the combined debt municipalities owed Eskom had surged to more than R58 billion.

In a desperate attempt to get some municipalities to pay up, Eskom implemented additional power cuts over and above load-shedding for certain defaulters.

This can be infuriating for paying residents and businesses served by the impacted municipalities.

In 2021 and 2022, Eskom was ordered to stop doing this to the delinquent municipalities of Lekwa and Ngwathe, which owed the power utility a combined R2 billion.

Eskom’s intermittent power cuts had punished Parys, Vredefort, Standerton, Sakhile, and Meyerville with outages lasting up to 22 hours per day.

The Pretoria High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal found that Eskom had not yet exhausted every avenue in resolving the arrear debt because it had not approached the national government to try and mediate in the issue.

In the past few months, Eskom has also threatened to interrupt its power supply to the metropolitan municipalities of Tshwane and Johannesburg for unpaid bills.

According to National Treasury, around 169 of South Africa’s 250 municipalities were in financial distress by March 2024.

Illegal electricity connections are exacerbating the issue.

In addition to being dangerous and potentially overloading infrastructure, this crime increases a municipality’s overall electricity consumption without providing revenue to put towards an Eskom bill.

MyBroadband asked Eskom to provide a list of the top 20 municipalities that owe it the most money.

Considering that some municipalities’ invoicing dates fall after Eskom’s, we requested that the power utility only provide those with outstanding accounts of two months or older.

The municipality that owed the most — Emalahleni (formerly Witbank) — is ironically also one of the biggest economic benefactors of Eskom’s operations.

Emahleni’s area of governance is surrounded by several Eskom power stations and mines that supply the stations with coal. It is home to many of the utility’s employees.

Not far behind Emalahleni was the Maluti A Phofung municipality in the Free State, with a total outstanding bill of R8.015 billion and Emfuleni in Gauteng, which owed R7.102 billion.

18 of the top 20 municipalities Eskom shared with us were on the National Treasury’s debt write-off programme. They are among 67 municipalities that have applied.

The only two in the top 20 not on this programme were the Johannesburg and Tshwane metros.

The table below shows the 20 municipalities that owe Eskom the most money.

Muncipalities with biggest Eskom debts — May 2024
Municipality	Prominent towns governed and province	Overdue amount	On debt relief
Emalahleni	eMalahleni (formerly Witbank) Mpumalanga	R8.703 billion	Yes
Maluti a Phofung	Harrismith, Kestell, Phutaditjhaba Free State	R8.015 billion	Yes
Emfuleni	Vanderbijlpark, Vereeniging, Three Rivers Gauteng	R7.103 billion	Yes
Mathjabeng	Welkom, Virginia, Odeendalsrus, Allanridge Free State	R5.814 billion	Yes
Govan Mbeki	Secunda, Bethal Mpumalanga	R4.533 billion	Yes
City of Tshwane Metro	Pretoria, Centurion, Mamelodi, Soshanguve Gauteng	R3.155 billion	No
Lekwa	Standerton, Tutuka Mpumalanga	R2.212 billion	Yes
Ngwathe	Parys, Vredefort Free State	R2.034 billion	Yes
City of Matlosana Metro	Klerksdrop North West	R1.798 billion	Yes
City of Mbombela Metro	Nelspruit, Gauteng	R1.546 billion	Yes
Thaba Chweu	Mashishing (formerly Lydenburg), Graskop, Sabie, Pilgrim’s Rest Mpumalanga	R1.453 billion	Yes
Enoch Mgijima	Komani, Hofmeyr, Tarkastad, Sterkstroom Eastern Cape	R1.217 billion	Yes
Moqhaka	Kroonstad, Steynsrus, Viljoenskroon Free State	R1.184 billion	Yes
Ditsobotla	Lichtenburg, Coligny North West	R1.181 billion	Yes
City of Johannesburg Metro	Johannesburg, Soweto Gauteng	R1.075 billion	No
Dihlabeng	Bethlehem, Clarens, Fouriersburg, Paul Roux, Rosendal Free State	R1.058 billion	Yes
Modimolle-Mookghophong	Modimolle (formerly Nylstroom), Mookgophong (formerly Naboomspruit) Limpopo	R1.002 billion	Yes
Msunduzi	Pietermaritzburg KwaZulu-Natal	R969.04 million	Yes
Naledi	Vryburg, Stella North West	R872.62 million	Yes
Sol Plaatje	Kimberley Northern Cape	R848.04 million	Yes

source:Eskom’s list of big thieves (mybroadband.co.za)

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