Eskom has rejected the City of Tshwane's offer to enter into payment settlement arrangements for the R878m owed to the power utility.

“The city failed to pay Eskom a total amount of R908m which was due and payable by June 17 . The municipality only made a payment of R10m on June 23 and R20m on June 30 ,” Eskom said on Monday.

As part of its efforts to recover the debt, Eskom had previously escalated the matter of the city's erratic payments to mayor Randall Williams in a meeting with him and his leadership team in January.

Eskom said the matter was again escalated to Williams in June, requesting him to assist in ensuring that the municipality settled the account by June 30.

“Out of the eight metropolitan municipalities in the country, the City of Tshwane is the only one with erratic payments.”

The erratic payments over the past year had contributed negatively to Eskom's increasing overdue debt, which was more than R46.6bn, liquidity, financial performance and its sustainability.

“As a utility, we are obliged to operate this business in a sustainable manner and to consequently take all the appropriate measures to recover money owed to us.

“We remain hopeful that the city will review its current position regarding the appeals made to them by Eskom and honour their payments,” said Daphne Mokwena, Eskom senior manager for customer services in Gauteng.

In February, the city embarked on a revenue-collecting campaign during which it disconnected services from government departments, embassies and businesses that had failed to pay up.

The city’s debtors’ book is standing at more than R17bn. This figure includes R1.3bn owed by government departments and embassies, R4bn owed by businesses and R8bn owed by residential customers,” Williams said.

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