Emfuleni Municipality still R4.6bn in the red – Maile
Gauteng Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Leboganga Maile says Emfuleni Municipality is R4.6 billion in debt.
Addressing the media in Johannesburg on Monday, Maile said the initial team of administrators at Emfuleni Municipality were not up to the job and had to be replaced.
A new team - led by Arbeto Martins – was subsequently appointed.
Emfuleni was placed under administration in June 2018.
Maile said the new team was tasked with focusing on three areas, supply chain management, finance, and infrastructure and service delivery.
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"One of the biggest challenges to the municipality’s financial viability and sustainability is the issue of historical debt to large creditors such as Eskom and Rand Water.
"The administrators met with Rand Water and agreed to pay the outstanding amount owed to Rand Water," Maile said.
He said the biggest creditors are Eskom, which it owed R3.2 billion at the end of January. This is followed by the R1.3 billion it owes Rand Water.
Maile said R2.7 billion of the Eskom debt is older than 90 days.
"We basically have three creditors above the R30 million mark, totalling roughly R4.5 billion.”
Payment arrangements have been made with some of the larger creditors, according to Maile.
