Municipalities’ debt to state-owned power utility Eskom rose almost 10% since March to R49.1bn by the end of July, deputy president David Mabuza says.
“This is not a desirable state of affairs for both Eskom and municipalities,” Mabuza told the National Council of Provinces in a briefing. “For that reason, Eskom forms part of a multidisciplinary revenue committee which is meant to address payment of debt to the utility by municipalities and organs of state.”
Municipalities struggle to collect payments for services such as water and electricity from consumers and in turn cannot pay their suppliers or maintain infrastructure. That has resulted in Eskom threatening to cut off electricity until it is paid, and some towns being left without water for weeks as pipes leak and pumps break down.
“Municipalities have been ordered to collect their debts and pay Eskom,” Mabuza said.
The deputy president also blamed lack of proper planning, tedious procedures and poor monitoring and co-ordination for the slow pace of relief projects since the April floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
“Our capability in responding to the disaster was not up to the required level,” he said.
“The pace at which the projects are being taken is not satisfactory and that is where we want to upscale. The amount of money that has been released is not to our satisfaction and red tape must be reduced,” he said.
Critical infrastructure damaged during the floods included roads, bridges, sanitation pipelines, telecommunication systems, power lines, houses, schools and health facilities.
“The process has not been as smooth as we anticipated it to be. Even though we have a multidisciplinary system, there were still problems with planning, execution and keeping track of projects.
“We want to apologise to all affected communities, families and individuals for having subjected them to this situation for a long time.”
Mabuza said the government intended strengthening its monitoring mechanism, identifying gaps and working with the province to create synergies to ensure people were assisted promptly.
“Yesterday (Wednesday) we had a cabinet meeting and took time to go straight into these issues. We have identified a number of challenges that are facing our response in KwaZulu-Natal, and we have taken it upon ourselves to improve the areas and gaps we have identified.”
He said the multidisciplinary response team must be strengthened with a capacity to measure damage and scale, and its project management also needed to be upscaled. The release of money in disaster areas must be quick, without allowing room for corruption.
With TimesLIVE
Bloomberg
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