Emfuleni Municipality fails to pay salaries after Eskom attaches its bank accounts
Emfulenin municipality owes Eskom over R8 billion, accounting for 10% of the total debt owed by municipalities.
FILE: Residents of Boitumelo township under the Emfuleni municipality say they have been neglected for nearly two decades. Picture: Abigail Javier/Eyewitness News
JOHANNESBURG - The Emfuleni Local Municipality has not paid September salaries to its employees after Eskom attached four of its bank accounts.
The attachment follows the municipality’s failure to pay the power utility for electricity supply.
Emfuleni owes Eskom over R8 billion, accounting for 10% of the total debt owed by municipalities.
Eskom said it has exhausted all legal and mediation avenues to secure regular payments from the municipality.
The lack of salary payments has left thousands of municipal workers in Emfuleni - including senior officials, councillors and service delivery personnel - stranded.
The embattled municipality is now awaiting a ruling from the Pretoria High Court regarding its application to have its four bank accounts released.
Emfuleni spokesperson Makhosonke Sangweni said the municipality was unable to reach an agreement with Eskom on monthly installments to settle its debt.
“Eskom wants us to pay the R250 million per month. And we said we are only able, which is what we are doing every month, to pay R150 million. They insist that they want R250 million. When they want R250 million, they are crippling us, they are crippling service delivery and the municipality at large.”
Sangweni could not specify when municipal workers would receive their September salaries.
He said the court's ruling would determine whether salaries will be paid soon or not.
SAMWU URGES EMFULENI TO FIND ALTERNATIVE TO PAY WORKERS’ SALARIES
The South African Municipal Workers' Union (SANWU) has urged the Emfuleni Local Municipality to find alternative ways to pay salaries to its employees.
SAMWU’s secretary in Gauteng – Mpho Tladinyane – said Eskom and the municipality must find an amicable solution to the crisis.
“Inter-governmental engagements are pursuing a permanent solution to the matter, and we are hoping that at least by Wednesday, latest Thursday morning, the inter-governmental engagements will have agreed to the signing of the urgency agreement and that will be a lasting solution to the current challenges.”