Rising municipal debt, illegal connections 'concerning' - says Ramokgopa
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has urged all three spheres of government to come together and assist municipalities in dealing with Eskom debt and illegal electricity connections.
Ramokgopa briefed the media on Monday on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan.
On load shedding, he says the country is not yet out of the woods, however, they are turning the corner.
The country is currently on stage 2 between 4 pm and 5 am.
"The energy availability factor is sustaining close to 60%, and then we will return three Kusile units. There is going to be a significant improvement in the energy situation," he said.
Ramokgopa says the municipal debt currently stands at R64 billion.
In June, the National Council of Provinces approved Eskom’s Debt Relief Bill, which allows the National Treasury to give Eskom R254 billion over three years.
"The interventions that the National Treasury is proposing for purposes of writing off the debt to Eskom, part of the requirements is that: first municipalities have to address the issues of illegal connections, and secondly, municipalities have to commit themselves to allow that we have a prepaid meter system and the dispensation of the prepaid meter system and thirdly, they have to be diligent payers consecutively over 12 months.
We have not resolved the bigger problem, which is that still with that intervention municipalities will require a substantial amount of money to invest in the refurbishment, replenishment, and maintenance of the distribution infrastructure,"
What we are looking for is to find a solution and an instrument that will make it possible to fix infrastructure in the short term, municipalities on their own are unlikely to resolve this problem, so as the government we need to come together as three spheres and assist," says Ramokgopa.
On the Energy Action Plan, Ramokgopa says significant progress has been made.
"Twenty of these actions are on track which means that we are in keeping with the timelines that we have set for ourselves, so we remain on track.
If anything, we would want to deliver much earlier than promised, but the measure is around what was the initial timelines that we set for ourselves and how are we doing against those timelines."
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