It is astonishing that President Cyril Ramaphosa supports the proposal that all overdue electricity bills in Soweto, townships, informal settlements and hostels must be written off.
Panyaza Lesufi, the new Gauteng Premier, proposed that the debt must be cancelled.
According to Ramaphosa, debt can indeed be cancelled under certain circumstances and on certain conditions.
That was the Parliament's reply to a question by the FF Plus earlier today during Parliament's question-and-reply session.
The FF Plus does not agree with this at all, seeing as it will allow the culture of non-payment, which was cultivated by the ANC, to flourish.
The President's reply, furthermore, made it clear that government has no plan to deal with overdue debt to Eskom. At present, municipalities outstanding debt to the power utility amounts to more than R35 billion.
The central government cannot afford to take over any more of Eskom's debt, because government debt is also already sky-high.
Eskom has already written off billions in unpaid electricity bills in Soweto. In 2020 alone, it wrote off nearly R8 billion in overdue debt.
Clearly, Soweto residents did not keep their end of the deal and simply continued to consume electricity without paying for it.
On 30 September 2022, Soweto still owed the power utility R4,7 billion.
In his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, announced that the Treasury will take over a portion of Eskom's debt.
Eskom's debt, however, remains taxpayers' problem and yielding to populist statements by politicians, like Lesufi, will put the already overtaxed middle class under even more pressure.
It also creates expectations that cannot be met in residents, which will lead to even more violent protect actions while reinforcing the culture of non-payment.
The ANC paid almost no attention to the poor living in townships and informal settlements over the past 30 years.
Instead, the party was solely focused on enriching a handful of cadres and friends at the expense of the poor.
With the 2024 elections around the corner, the ANC is desperately trying to canvass votes with irresponsible promises – which will surely blow up in its face.
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