Pretoria - A Gauteng municipality, labour federation, Cosatu and Saftu, and political parties have jointly condemned Nersa’s decision to grant Eskom a 18.65% tariff increase, describing the move as a ploy “to plunge ordinary South Africans into further poverty.”
Now, the energy regulator, which made its announcement on Thursday, is likely to face legal action to force it to reverse its decision.
The controversial tariff increase comes as the power utility was unable to keep the lights on and had placed the entire country into Stage 6 of load shedding indefinitely. One of the smallest but flourishing municipalities in Gauteng, Midvaal Local Municipality in the Vaal, was among a host of objectors to the tariff increase.
Midvaal Mayor Peter Teixeira said South Africans would be forced to pay an exorbitant amount for electricity they did not get.
“The increased load shedding stages have an adverse effect on Midvaal Local municipality’s electricity infrastructure and network. It also hinders our ability to attend to power outages, which have become a norm due to the surge in energy from the constant load shedding,” he said.
Teixeira also said that the prolonged rolling blackouts implemented by Eskom would also give an opportunity for cable theft and vandalism.
Equally aggrieved was Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla, who said that the continuous above-inflation increases that Eskom had received since 2006 were nothing more than “legalised robbery of consumers”.
“These increases only serve to pickpocket workers of their meagre wages, suffocate businesses and deny the economy the chance to reduce unemployment.”
He said that had led to many of its clients deserting it and pushing it further down into a death spiral, saying companies, including key Eskom customers such as the mining industry, which accounts for 30% of its customer base, shopping centres and countless other large consumers, were going off the grid.
“At this rate, Eskom will be left only with those who cannot afford to go off the grid,” he said.
Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi was adamant that the solution to this was a mass protest against tariff increases.
These sentiments were also expressed by the DA’s Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Ghaleb Cachalia, who said Nersa for to increase electricity tariffs by 18.65% despite consumers spending over 120 days in darkness in 2022, with indefinite stage 6 load shedding already in 2023, was official-sanctioned daylight robbery against consumers.
Cachalia further warned: “It is time for all South Africans to stand up and say "Enough Is Enough!"
He said Nersa had essentially abdicated on its statutory obligation to protect consumers from unfair energy pricing and, instead, pandered to the corporate interests of an entity that had completely failed to generate enough electricity to meet demand.
“South Africans are already stretched to breaking point due to a high cost of living, and this move by Nersa will force many to make the difficult choice of either putting food on the table or paying for non-existent power supply from Eskom.
“This Nersa/Eskom raid on consumers’ empty pockets is unfair, unjust and cruel because it is asking consumers to pay more for electricity that they don’t have,” Cachalia said.
DA’s federal council chair Helen Zille and party leader John Steenhuisen had already indicated that their party was considering taking legal action against the tariff increase.
Meanwhile, the FF Plus has warned President Cyril Ramaphosa against the pending write-off of R5 billion debt by Soweto residents.
FF Plus spokesperson Wouter Wessels said such actions reinforce the culture of non-payment for electricity and directly contribute to exorbitant hikes in the power price, like the 18,65% that Nersa had announced.
Eskom had initially asked the energy regulator for an increase of 32%.
“This increase is completely out of touch with the economic realities in South Africa and the fact that most South Africans are living below the breadline.
“It will have the greatest impact on the agricultural sector, which is, like the rest of the country's business sector, already struggling to survive due to load shedding,” he said.
Wessels said consumers who loyally pay for their electricity were being punished because of the government’s incompetence and those who do not pay for their power consumption.
Ramaphosa said that the debt could indeed be cancelled under certain circumstances and on certain conditions.
“If the current outstanding debt of nearly R5 billion is, however, written off, it will be the umpteenth time that Soweto's debt is cancelled. About R17,3 billion of Soweto's debt has been written off since 2003.
“Clearly, Soweto residents simply continued to consume electricity without paying for it,” he said.
Wessels said the government had no plan for dealing with the exorbitant debt owed to Eskom, saying municipalities' outstanding debt to the power utility amounts to more than R60 billion.
“The central government cannot afford to take on any more of Eskom's debt because government debt is also sky-high,” he said.
Pretoria News