It could be lights out for West Rand over R700m Eskom debt

The local municipality owes more than R732 million.

It’s understood the bill was racked up over a 12-year period.

The power utility is threatening to switch off lights for Randfontein and Westonaria but it’s unclear when the directive will take effect. 

Mayor Gladys Khoza addressed media at her offices in Randfontein on Tuesday, vowing to continue engagements with Eskom.

“We are owing Eskom. Most of our community doesn’t understand where this comes from. It comes where we are not able to collect revenue so when our clients or our community are not paying services, that’s where we cannot also pay the Eskom account so we have this debt now,” Khoza told media. 

“We as the West Rand, we are owing R732 million as we stand now. We were supposed to pay R60 million a month but we are unable. We are paying R32 million but we can’t.” 

Big businesses, including mines, are also among the defaulting customers. 

Residents and businesses will have at least a month to sort out their affairs with the municipality.  

“Even the mines, they are not paying us. They are owning us a lot of money and we normally have a lot of meetings so that they come and pay,” Khoza added.  

“We are giving our community three to four weeks to come forward and do all those engagements.”

Khoza admitted the inability to collect revenue efficiently has left the municipality struggling to keep up with basic service delivery.

“We cannot have grass cutting, we cannot patch potholes, we cannot even do anything that relates to maintenance because we do not have enough budget to do this. We do not have cashflow to do these things.”

The West Rand also owes R140m to Rand Water. 

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