Supreme Court dismiss Eskom’s bid to cut-off power to Free State municipality

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) sitting in the heart of Bloemfontein, has dismissed Eskom’s bid to cut off power from one of the Free State municipalities.

Following the court’s ruling, the power utility, has been forced to restore power to the residents of Ngwathe.

The ‘delinquent’ Ngwathe local municipality, as it is classified by Eskom, owes the under-constraint power utility, R1.32 billion.

Municipalities across the country owe Eskom more than R35.3 billion, and one of the power utility’s biggest defaulters, Ngwathe municipality has been slapped with a court order to pay R1.32 bn plus 2.5% interest for its unserviced debt.

Handing down the judgement on Monday, SCA announced Eskom has lost an appeal, and the apex court said is in favour of two community associations, and this means, the embattled utility has to immediately restore full maximum electricity supply to residents.

“The municipality can quaintly be described as dysfunctional and delinquent,” said Judge Meyer when addressing the issue behind “delinquent”

“The residents involved in this litigation are all paying consumers of prepaid electricity.

However the municipalities have failed to honour their payment obligations to Eskom for years.

“Noting that as at June 2020, the municipality owed more than R1 billion and it was “indisputably in breach” of their agreements with Eskom, residents don’t have to be punished in this regard,” concluded Meyer.