The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) was informed by the Minister of Public Works, Ms Patricia de Lille that, from 1 April 2020, the national departments and municipalities will be responsible to pay their own accounts to Eskom.
The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, which appeared before the committee at Parliament today to brief the committee on its plan to address the Eskom debt, is stuck with a R2.6 billion fluctuating overdraft, that is not in compliance with the PFMA (Public Finance Management Act), as a result of late or non-payments from line departments and municipalities.
Briefing the committee, Ms De Lille said: “When the Auditor-General, in one of his management letters, raised a concern about this overdraft, it is then that we said we cannot as the department get a qualified audit because of other departments. We then agreed to shift it to the relevant departments. The overdraft is a concern as it is not complying with the PFMA.”
The Director-General of the department, Adv Sam Vukela, supported this statement by adding that the department will not pay for services incurred by line departments that do not pay for services. “We have taken a decision that all the line departments should take over the responsibility of paying for their own services to municipalities. Another decision that we are going to take is that if the line departments do not pay us, we are not going to pay. The after effects will be that if Eskom or a municipality takes a decision to cut services, they will cut directly to that line department,” he said.
The department was flagged by Eskom as the biggest offender when it was presenting the list of entities owing Eskom to the committee in December 2019. Scopa was informed that the department owes Eskom about R3 billion. However, the department has disputed that claim to Scopa and is confident that it owes much less.
Scopa member, Mr Bheki Hadebe, lamented the lack of consistency and coherence in the reports from the various stakeholders responsible for the government debt to Eskom. He said: “I don’t know what to make of the report from the department. On 4 December 2018, when we met with the Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) together with Eskom and the South African Local Government Association (Salga), we took a decision to call the biggest offender, which is the department.
“Today we are told that we are crucifying the wrong Jesus. This means that Eskom, Salga and the IMTT lied to us. What we were told in that meeting, and what we have been given is very different,” he added.
The Chairperson of Scopa, Mr Mkhuleko Hlengwa, expressed a concern with the confusion brought on by the presentations, but stressed the need for treading carefully while dealing with this matter.
“Seated here, my challenge is what do we make of the report given to us in December last year, because Eskom, Salga and National Treasury did not mention the fact that in listing the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure as the offender-in-chief, that there were engagements going on between them. Whilst we are concerned about that, we also need to tread carefully so that we do not accept anything including, but not limited to, what the department itself has said as the Gospel truth until such time that we have all the parties together,” he said.
Mr Hlengwa stated that it becomes difficult for the committee to understand what is really happening where Eskom’s debt is concerned because there are issues of reliability that are of concern to Scopa. He added that, had the IMTT fulfilled its role, all this confusion would have been prevented.
“At the heart of this is the total collapse of the IMTT which was supposed to have sorted this mess out and it did not do so. Had the IMTT had its finger on the pulse, it would have been able to clear the wood so that the playing field and the accountability could be done. Ultimately that is where the failure was. By bringing the parties together, it should have been able to deal with these things,” he said.
By Faith Ndenze
4 February 2020
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