The lights in Makhanda will stay on for now after Eskom and Makhanda residents and businesses put together a High Court-sanctioned plan to force Makana municipality to pay its massive and overdue debt to the power utility. A Daily Dispatch report notes the Grahamstown Residents’ Association (GRA), Grahamstown Business Forum (GBF) and individual businesses resorted to court for an urgent interdict to stop Eskom from implementing its threat to switch off the bulk electricity supply to Makana municipality which owes it more than R80m.

But yesterday, lawyers from both sides formulated a settlement plan which will force the municipality to ring-fence all electricity income from residents and from the electricity portion of its equitable share and hand it over to Eskom.

The municipality has reneged on its own council resolution from more than a year ago in terms of which it was meant to do this. The municipality was cited as a respondent in court papers in the Eskom interdict matter but did not show up at court.

In the end, this turned out badly for the municipality which was unrepresented in a settlement which will see its senior officials having to meet the municipality’s payment obligations to Eskom or face the possibility of being jailed for contempt of court. Even worse for the municipality was that Judge Zamani Nhlangulela ordered it to foot what will prove a very large legal bill – which included multiple attorney firms and four legal counsel.

In terms of the order negotiated between lawyers for Eskom and GRA and GBF, the matter was postponed to June. In the interim, the lights will stay on and National Treasury and the Cogta national and provincial department will be joined in the application in a bid to find an inter-governmental solution to the payment impasse.

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