Court Orders Local Municipality In Eastern Cape To Pay Eskom R120m Debt

LUCAS LEDWABA

THE Eastern Cape High Court has cracked the whip on a local municipality that owes power utility Eskom an estimated R128 million in unpaid services.

The ruling by the Grahamstown division of the high court follows action brought against the Inxuba Yethemba Municipality, which incorporates the historic town of Cradock and Middelburg.

In June last year, the Cradock Business Forum, Middelburg Ratepayers Association and Cradock Ratepayers Association filed an application against Eskom, the National Energy Regulator and the Inxuba Yethemba Municipality, its executive mayor and municipal manager, MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs in the Eastern Cape and the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

The applicants wanted the court to compel Eskom and the municipality to “take every reasonable effort to settle the dispute between them, including exhausting all other remedies to resolve the aforesaid dispute in terms of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act before