The total outstanding debt owed to Eskom by municipalities in the Eastern Cape, the Free State, Mpumalanga and the North West amounts to R1.1-billion, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Richard Baloyi has confirmed.

Baloyi said in a written response to a Parliamentary question by Freedom Front Plus Member of Parliament Pieter Groenewald on Friday that Eskom is owed R529.1-million for debt older than 90 days, R191.7-million for a period of 90 days, R216.6-million for a period of 60 days and R164.1-million for 30 days.

Of the four provinces, municipalities in the Free State and Mpumalanga owed the largest amounts, with arrears of R463.8-million and R463.6-million respectively. Municipalities in the North West province owed R182.4-million, while municipalities in the Eastern Cape owed R18.8-million.

The Parliamentary question did not deal with municipal arrears of the other five provinces.

Eskom warned in March that several municipalities were facing possible bulk supply disconnections, owing to nonpayment of arrears debt. Engineering News Online reported that the utility had initiated disconnection processes with several municipalities.

Various reasons were offered as to why a number of municipalities had stopped paying their monthly Eskom accounts, including the fact that monthly municipal electricity accounts had increased proportionately to Eskom's electricity tariff increase, Engineering News Online reported.

In the event of a defaulting municipality failing to agree to a payment arrangement, or defaulting on a payment agreement, Eskom initiated a disconnection process in line with the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act.

A defaulting municipality was informed in writing to settle the debt within 14 days. However, if a municipality did not settle the arrears in full and/or did not enter into a payment agreement, the municipality’s customers were then informed that supply would be disconnected after 30 days.

About 40% of Eskom’s total sales were to municipalities, which on-sold the electricity to households and businesses in their areas of supply.