EDITORIAL | Lesufi’s tweet was impractical, but it did beg some questions

Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi set the cat among the pigeons when he tweeted this week that Soweto and other townships’ debt to Eskom should be scrapped, nudging finance minister Enoch Godongwana to make it happen. That would be nearly R5bn in debt wiped off the earth. Add a zero to that number, and it takes us to how much Eskom is owed by municipalities and government. According to President Cyril Ramaphosa in parliament on Thursday, these entities owe Eskom R50bn.

Lesufi’s warped reasoning is that writing off townships debt to Eskom debt would somehow ultimately assist with economic growth: “Our argument remains, if Eskom debt is taken over by the central government, what our people owe Eskom in townships, informal settlements and hostels must also be scrapped. We need to reposition our townships, informal settlements and hostels so that they can be centres of growth,” he tweeted, reducing a complicated debate to 280 characters.

Ramaphosa poured cold water on Lesufi’s suggestion on Thursday. The president rightly said South Africans must pay for the services they use.

“The user-pay principle does need to be observed by all of us, largely because the state carries a big burden. When you look at the social support of our budget, it’s way over 50%.” There is no doubt citizens should pay for services rendered, but it becomes a hard sell when the government’s services are not up to scratch. Ramaphosa did not go there but did acknowledge he understood people were going through economic hardship. “The prices of nearly everything have gone up, and we also need to understand Eskom’s position. Eskom is under a huge burden of debt, so when one looks at these considerations one needs to have a balanced conclusion.”

Most South Africans will roll their eyes at the above statement. Load-shedding has practically become the norm with households, schools, churches and businesses having to fork out money from their own pockets to make alternative energy plans when Eskom switches the lights off. Ramaphosa is asking South Africans to do the right thing and pay their water and lights bills — when even our own government departments and municipalities are often not up to date with their payments.

It’s all good and well for the president of the country to tell parliament, “we have made it clear that nonpayment for services is unacceptable and have taken a number of steps to ensure that the payment of these debts is recovered”, but it must have been hard for Ramaphosa to keep a straight face when he said this. He is very well acquainted with all the reasons why our government departments and municipalities have depleted budgets, why Eskom is drowning in debt and why our power stations are falling apart.

He is correct though; we have to start rebuilding somewhere. The tiny steps of progress should be noted. While Eskom’s debt burden remains a concern for investors, it did manage to reduce its gross debt by nearly 17% in the financial year ending March 2021. However, in that same period, outstanding municipal debt rose 26%, with literally only a handful of municipalities honouring their arrears payment agreements.

Ramaphosa said on Thursday the department of public works was paying the service charges and property rates for its properties on behalf of client departments, to assist municipalities across the country to pay what they owe Eskom. In September, he said, the public works department paid R575m for property rates and municipal services and processed invoices of R51m to Eskom. This is a start. However, if our own government departments do not start consistently leading by example, it will become very difficult for Ramaphosa to make counter arguments against populist tweets by provincial premiers.