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EEC OWED E50M, TO SWITCH OFF LIGHTS

24/01/2022 08:38:00 Stanley Khumalo

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MANZINI – It could be lights off for several entities as the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) is owed millions.

Government, this publication has gathered, is the main culprit. The parastatal has already announced that it will undertake a disconnection exercise and, it has been gathered, is owed about E50 million. In the past, the public was deprived of government services such that in Mankayane, all government establishments were, for a week, without electricity in recent years.
EEC Marketing and Communications Manager Khaya Mavuso confirmed that the electricity provider was owed E50 million when he was sought for comment on how much was owed to the company.

Debtor

Also, Mavuso was requested to expand on previous reports, wherein it emerged that government was the biggest debtor. He was asked how much government owed. Furthermore, the marketing and communications manager was requested to state what would the plan be for entities whereby the law provided that terminating their power was regarded as treason. He said: “All I can say is that we are being owed E50 million. I can’t disclose details of our customers and their bills.” It is worth noting that in most instances, government has been having the highest outstanding balances with EEC. Impeccable sources said if it were not for the many small commercial and domestic customers on the prepaid system, the company would have not been able to keep afloat as most of the money that needed to be reinvested was with government.

Impeccable sources relayed that the failure by government to settle its arrears dating over a decade back was to the disadvantage of the country in terms of investments in renewable energy and improving the infrastructure of EEC. They claimed that there was a possibility of the power sourced from South Africa to be minimised in the next two years when the contract between the countries came to an end. It is on record that Eswatini imports 80 per cent of its electricity from Eskom in South Africa and 10 per cent from Mozambique. Local generation contributes only about 10 per cent, mainly for peak load. Last week, the utility published a notice of disconnection on its social media pages, wherein it stated that it shall be conducting a major disconnection exercise on all overdue accounts. The exercise was expected to commence today (January 24, 2022).

In the notice, EEC stated that customers were requested to pay all their overdue bills to avoid being disconnected. The utility further stated that the disconnection exercise would run until the end of March 2022. The owing customers of EEC were ‘advised that no negotiations would be accepted on overdue accounts’. In past reports by this publication, it was reported that the arrears accrued by government were in 2012 in excess of E40 million. This resulted in the company disconnecting power at a number of government departments, which in turn limited service delivery. At the time, this publication reported that it disconnected electricity at the District Commissioner’s (DC) Offices, which also housed departments from other ministries. The departments which were left without electricity were Immigration Offices, Revenue, Agriculture and Housing ministries. In 2017, the utility, as per its advertisement, switched off power supply to some owing government ministries, departments and parastatals.

Parastatals

At the time, when EEC targeted government ministries and parastatals which owed the utility power provider over E17.2 million, five ministries, namely; Natural Resources and Energy, Public Works and Transport, Health, Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Home Affairs as well as the Treasury Department had their power supply disconnected. These five ministries and the Treasury Department form part of a list of 27 others that owe the utility company. On the other hand, it has become a norm for police residential camps to have their power disconnected by EEC at this time of the year due to outstanding balances.

Meanwhile, when the Deputy Government Spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, was sought for comment on how much was owed by government and on whether services would be rendered in all ministries, given that the utility would be disconnecting power supply, she referred questions to the Ministry of Finance wherein the Communications Officer, Setsabile Dlamini, said: “The utility bills are budgeted for in the respective ministries’ budget.” Meanwhile, an economist has said the constant failure by government to pay its debts reflected poor planning.
Economics Lecturer at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) Sanele Sibiya said the constant power disconnections for government ministries were an embarrassment and a sign of poor planning.

He said this depicted that government either lacked planning or did not know how much to plan for. Sibiya said this needed government to revisit its planning system. Also, he said this could mean that all revenue generated by government through tax collection by Eswatini Revenue Services (ERS) only funded the wage bill. This, he said, meant that when ERS failed to meet its targets, service delivery was bound to suffer. The economics scholar said it was far better not to budget than to give false hope. “This results in the reallocations and constant need of loans as we don’t know how to plan as a country,” Sibiya said.

He said at the moment, government’s recurring expenditure was due to government failing to generate more money as tax collections were mostly used to fund the wage bill. This was the same view held by the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). Secretary General (SG) of TUCOSWA Mduduzi Gina said the annual disconnection of electricity across government ministries and departments was a sign of failure to prioritise. He likened it to the annual failure by government to pay the free primary education (FPE) and also orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) grants on time. Gina said the school calendar year was always known by government first and expected impeccable delivery from teachers while failing to play its role. In the case of EEC, Gina said the company was expected to play a major role in improving power generation, but was also deprived of the resources to do that.

“They need to prioritise their debts and pay them before seeking to invest in infrastructure that will benefit a few people,” he said. Gina claimed that from the actions always taken by government, he was convinced that service delivery was the least priority. He said this was because in most instances, services were sought by government; however, it failed to pay the accrued bill. It is worth noting that while government promotes small medium enterprises (SMEs) to improve the economy, many establishments have gone under due to failure by government to settle its arrears.