It has recently been announced by NERSA, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, that the tariff price of electricity will be increased over the next three years. Thankfully for all consumers, it’s a shadow of the original requests made by public energy utility company Eskom. These requests were for 17.1%, 15.4% and 15.5% respectively, and although these are basically extortionate, the current approved tariff hikes are still a concern for businesses and consumers all across the nation.
NERSA has announced that it’s Multi-Year Price Determination currently sits at 9.41% for 2019, 8.10% for 2020 and 5.2% for 2021. That is a total of 22.71% over the next three years. These increases are set to to assist the debt-stricken state-owned entity with an additional total of R661.301 billion in recovery funds from customers through out this three year period. Besides these hikes, it seems that the recent price hikes have not been implemented fairly as well.
There has been reports and complaints from some property owners in the City of Cape Town paying increases of up to 30%, way above the average increase for the region. Homeowners with properties worth over R1 million, a surcharge of around R150 has been imposed – regardless of the amount of energy the make use of. In addition, these residents are subject to a flat rate of 10%. Customers who has a monthly electricity usage of more than 450 units across the past 12 months no longer receive FBE units. Compared to homeowners who consumed more than 600 units, “lifeline” customers who used over 350 units had to pay the same rate of R2.4214 per KWh.
There has been petitions and calls for NERSA to investigate this has seen positive action, as NERSA agreed to look into this issue and are currently investigating the City of Cape Town’s tariff structures. The plea and cry from a petition that gathered around 5000 signatures, is for Premier Alan Winde, to immediately drop the electricity tariffs pending the otcome of the NERSA investigation.