[LISTEN] Eskom to face court action over 'unlawful’ power cuts
Business organisation Sakeliga believes Eskom’s decision to disrupt electricity supply to defaulting municipalities infringes on the rights of its customers.
A legal battle over Eskom’s right to cut electricity supply to communities after municipalities failed to pay up is heading to the High Court in Pretoria.
Sakeliga has filed court papers requesting the court to grant an urgent interdict to prevent the power utility from disrupting supply to residents if a municipality defaults on its payments.
“We think it is wrong of Eskom and it is counterproductive to switch off towns electricity in order to try and get the municipalities to pay the bill,” says Sakeliga CEO Piet le Roux.
Le Roux says the cash-strapped state-owned entity took the decision to interrupt supply to Musina in North West– which they believe to be unconstitutional, illegal and invalid.
“The local residents of the towns and the business in those communities have in may cases already paid their bills and the problem is, is that the municipality has failed to pay over the money that it has already collected from paying customers to Eskom. Now, Eskom is switching off the whole town’s electricity over the failure of the municipality.”
In August, a group of businessmen in Gauteng took the Emfuleni municipality to court to ask permission from the court to pay their electricity bills directly to Eskom, cutting out the municipality.
Eskom then said that “the interdict is really for the benefit of Eskom”.
“They are saying that they have been paying the municipality and the municipality has failed to pass on the money to Eskom. If the court rules in their favour, it will be a ruling in Eskom's favour because we will get the money directly from these customers that are willing to pay," said spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe.