Parliament, Wednesday, 4 March 2020 – The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has resolved to call a hearing with Eskom, the Minister of Finance, Salga, CoGTA, national departments, MECs of provincial departments that owe Eskom and municipalities that owe Eskom on 18 March 2020. This is to come up with a solution on how all those who owe Eskom will settle their debt.
In the fifth Administration an Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) was established and was tasked with resolving the municipal debt to Eskom issue. Scopa understood that this structure will continue functioning to deal with this issue in the sixth Administration. However, the committee was informed in December that this function had been transferred to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Service Delivery (IMCSD) led by the Deputy President and Leader of Government Business.
In a correspondence to the committee, the Parliamentary Counsellor to the Deputy President informed the committee that the IMCSD has not been mandated to deal with the Eskom debt. Scopa is disturbed by the failure of the executive to come with a coordinated approach of dealing with the Eskom debt, particularly since Eskom is the major contributor to the current technical recession.
Scopa will come up with a roadmap to deal with how these intergovernmental challenges can be resolved. Scopa’s objective is to ensure that Eskom moves towards a direction of viability and profitability.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF SCOPA, MR MKHULEKO HLENGWA.
For media enquiries, please contact the Committee’s Media Officer:
Name: Ms Faith Ndenze
Parliamentary Communication Services
Tel: 021 403 8062
Cell: 081 377 0686
Email: fndenze@parliament.gov.za
Arrange a tour