The municipality, which was a massive financial contributor in the province with its gold and platinum mines around areas such as Orkney near Kanana and Stilfontein near Khuma, is struggling to keep up with arranged payments with its service providers.

The mayor of the troubled municipality, James Tsolela, told OFM News that the municipality owes a combined R2.6 billion to at least two service providers and they are still failing to keep up with the monthly instalments. Tsolela said the municipality owes Eskom R1.5 billion and the [Midvaal] Water Board or utility R1.1 billion. He, however, said the municipality has further entered into more revised payment arrangements with these two entities.

OFM News previously reported that the ailing power utility Eskom has since won a court battle to attach the bank account of the city.

ALSO READ: Eskom gets court order over Matlosana's 1,5 billion debt

"With regard to Midvaal, we are owing Midvaal R1.1 billion. We are also working nicely with Midvaal. We already have a payment plan that we are consistently paying – according to the payment plan, the monthly instalment. There are, however, times when we could not honour the payment agreement that we have with Midvaal. But we engaged with them and we explained the circumstances to them. We are trying to catch up with whatever we owe to these two [entities]. Those are our biggest debts that we have as the City of Matlosana," Tsolela said.

Eskom already has a court order against the municipality and it comes after the troubled municipality failed to settle its monthly debt repayment to Eskom, which now is R1.5 billion in the red. Over the years, the municipality has failed to keep up with payment arrangements with Eskom, plunging the city into a debt crisis.

On Wednesday 8 March 2023, Tsolela told residents who gathered at the municipal hall in Klerksdorp for the Mayoral Imbizo, that despite challenging the court order, Eskom won in the end.

In 2022, Eskom launched a scathing attack on several municipalities in the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, as well as Matlosana for what it termed "an unwillingness from municipalities to settle their debts".

ALSO READ: Eskom slams municipalities

The general manager of Eskom’s central east cluster (Free State and KwaZulu-Natal), Agnes Mlambo, slammed both Free State and North West municipalities for spending millions on legal costs instead of paying their debts, which run into millions of rand.

In June 2022, Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke announced that almost half (43%) of the money spent by North West municipalities was spent irregularly.

Maluleke told Members of Parliament the municipalities in the province continued to record disclaimer audit opinions whilst the lack of service delivery and performance deteriorated. She blamed this on what she labelled as significant leadership instability, which she said is continuing to decline.

ALSO READ: Almost half of North West municipalities' expenditure irregular

Maluleke further announced that all 22 North West municipalities failed to obtain a clean audit.

ALSO READ: 22 North West municipalities fail to obtain clean audits

In her audit report, she said these 22 municipalities either obtained unqualified opinions, qualified opinions with findings or disclaimed opinions, making them one of the worst-performing provinces.

OFM News