The Democratic Alliance (DA) has approached an attorney regarding the electricity cuts in the Ditsobotla Municipality in the North West.

Lichtenburg and its surrounds were without electricity for 18 days after a pylon fell on 27 July and a transformer was vandalised.

The ailing municipality has been battling to pay for its utilities and owes Eskom an estimated R1-billion.

The electricity producer wants R123-million from the municipality, so it can fix the problem.

But the DA's Leon Basson said many of the business owners in Lichtenburg pay the power utility directly because they know the municipality cannot pay for electricity services.

In 2017, these business owners took Eskom to court for suspending its electricity supply, and the high court found in favour of the businesses.

"The court ruled that Eskom was not allowed to cut electricity to the town unless it was for maintenance and repairs," Basson said.

"The Constitutional Court upheld this ruling last year. A lot of the end users pay Eskom directly, and Eskom cannot hold residents liable because the municipality is not paying [the utility]."

On Sunday, the DA in the North West said Eskom was abusing the situation at the expense of residents "who have suffered financial losses and endured the inconvenience of this sustained blackout in a bid to recover money from the Ditsobotla Local Municipality's R1-billion unpaid bulk electricity debt".

"Eskom is now effectively denying residents their constitutional right to enjoy access to electricity because of its own failures to pursue legal and ethical debt recovery avenues that would not further inconvenience paying residents and businesses.

"The situation in Lichtenburg can best be described as oppressive," the DA said.

Lichtenberg was once a thriving factory town, with people migrating from all over the country because they were sure to find jobs working the line in one of the many plants. But residents say since 2009 commerce started moving out of the area.

The latest primary factory closure was Clover in 2021, which moved to Queensburgh, Durban. The Clover cheese factory was the biggest in the country. It closed because it could not sustain the factory through the constant electricity and water cuts, which it attributed to non-payment of utilities by the municipality.

Only two major factories remain in the town, the Lafarge Cement factory and the AfriSam cement plant. These factories are bound to the area because they dig minerals from the ground.

The municipality called Eskom's demands for R123-million upfront "delaying tactics".

In its latest statement on Friday, the municipality said, "Eskom's turnaround and delaying tactics have caught the municipality by surprise because we thought the problem of the electricity blackout in Lichtenburg could have expeditiously been addressed a long time ago by Eskom.

"Eskom must take into cognisance that the vandalised infrastructure is not of the municipality, but Eskom's infrastructure. Hence, the company is duty-bound to fix the damages and restore electricity to consumers. 

"Meanwhile, the municipality did not want the electricity problem to prolong. Thus it escalated the matter to the provincial government for speedy intervention."

Responding to queries about the DA threatening court action, Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said the utility "did not switch off nor suspend electricity to the municipality, however [we are] doing our level best to restore".

When asked about the R123-million payment Eskom is demanding towards the municipality's bulk electricity account, Mokwena said: "In as much we are doing our best to restore, there were such talks that they should do their part as well."