Pretoria - Voices of concern are rising across the country over load shedding and the financial effect of Eskom’s National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa)-approved two-year tariff hike on municipalities, households and businesses.
One such voice is the SA Local Government Association (Salga).
Nersa has granted the power uitility a two-year tariff increase of 18.65% for the 2024/25 financial year and another increase of 12.74% for the 2024/25 period.
These increases will reportedly enable the power utility to garner revenue of R 318.9 billion in the current year and R352bn in the next year.
Salga spokesperson, Tebogo Mosala said the organisation appreciated the duty of the regulator had in setting the rules and rates for electricity generation, transmission, and distribution in the country.
However, the ongoing increases while Eskom continues to battle a shortage of generation capacity will have a continuing negative affect on municipalities, households and businesses, he said.
“The approved tariff by Nersa amounts to a total of 33% increase over next two years. Effectively this is the increase Eskom asked for and is an increase of more than times times inflation. And it comes at a time of Stage 6 load shedding where we are experiencing a loss of power for eight hours out of 24, meaning that for one third of the time, we don’t have power at all.
“Such a price increase can only result in a lot of hardship for customers across the board be it domestic, commercial, mining, industrial and municipal customers, all of which will likely result in accelerated levels of non-payment, theft, illegal connections and related technical losses, and further exacerbate municipalities’ inability to pay Eskom,” Mosala warned.
He said taking into consideration that the country was likely to witness weak economic growth, stagflation risks, high unemployment and a high inflation rate with rising prices and the overall cost of living, consumers were cash-strapped to keep up with the unaffordable electricity price hikes.
“Utility services are becoming increasingly unaffordable. All this is happening while municipalities are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic which impacted the ability of municipalities to collect revenues, and service municipal debt.
“The current electricity model is fundamentally flawed which is why Salga is advocating to accelerate the energy transition, including legislative reforms that would enable municipalities to generate their own electricity and purchase electricity from independent power producers to relieve pressure on Eskom and ensure energy security.”
Mosala’s sentiments were also shared by users on social media, who under the thread Medupi and Kusile, questioned the country’s slow transition to renewable energy and the billions which was spent on the two power stations.
“Eskom’s Medupi and Kusile power stations cost overran three times more than initial budget estimates and further require in excess of R100 billion to commission. They were designed and built for one reason and one reason only, corruption and rampant looting,” commented Tshepo Kgadima.
“In 2023, we can’t still be talking about Thabo Mbeki’s failure to respond when Medupi and Kusile were supposed to close the gap, while comrades saw an opportunity to eat and we are in this mess,” user Nohayi tweeted.
Pretoria News