Eskom punishes defaulters, cuts electricity supply to Northern Cape towns

Eskom continue to punish municipalities that have failed to pay their bills by shutting down their electricity supply.

On Tuesday, Eskom announced that it would be suspending service to the Tsantsabane and Emthanjeni municipalities in the Northern Cape. 

In a statement, they say that the municipalities were notified of this intention last week.

“Eskom recognises that the indefinite disconnection of electricity supply may cause undue hardship to consumers and members of the community, and may adversely affect the delivery of other services,” they said. 

“In view of this, Eskom will implement a regulated interruption of electricity supply as opposed to an outright disconnection. 

The power will therefore be cut in those areas between 6:00am and 20:00pm. 

Eskom owed billions by municipalities

Earlier this month, Eskom issued warnings to several non-paying municipalities, with power supply to Kamiesberg Local Municipality in the Free State and Letsemeng Local Municipality in the Northern Cape severed. Kamiesberg got the money in at the final hour and avoided suspension. 

According to Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter, South African municipalities owe Eskom around R26.8 billion.

“Positively, the payment rate in Soweto has improved from 12% to 23.9%. This is thanks to government leaders who have come out and stated that users need to pay for the services they use,” he said in January.

The embattled power supplier is currently trying to complete maintenance projects on some of its biggest supply hubs, and continue to implement load shedding in order to keep the grid live.

At Eskom’s last financial reporting, Soweto was the biggest individual non-paying area, owing to the power utility R19 billion. At the time, other municipalities owed R17.6 billion.

Loadshedding suspended… for now

Eskom have ceased their rolling load shedding program this week, celebrating their “achievement” rather obnoxiously given the fact that cuts remain abnormally frequent, and that their mandate is essentially… to keep the lights on.