NERSA’s 18.65% tariff increase will push ordinary South Africans further into poverty
13 January 2023
The announcement made by the National Energy Regulation of South Africa (NERSA) to increase electricity by 18.65% is simply unaffordable and will drive millions of South Africans further into poverty. The increase is despite Eskom’s inability to keep the lights on, having recently raised load shedding to Stage 6.
We are currently forced to contend with not having electricity for up to 9 hours a day. The price of electricity has risen by more than 500% in the past 16 years, while Eskom has received billions in bailouts and yet, to date, still fails to keep the lights on. South Africans will be forced to pay an exorbitant amount for electricity they do 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.
The prolonged rolling blackouts implemented by Eskom also give an opportunity for cable theft and vandalism. Page 2 of 3 Ordinary South Africans cannot be expected to carry the cost of Eskom’s failure and incompetence. Midvaal Local Municipality is currently working to become less reliant on Eskom:
1. Council has approved the Embedded Generation Policy (formerly known as the Small-Scale Embedded policy) to allow large energy customers to generate their own energy during commercial hours. To date, we have administered over ten applications and are seeing a huge uptake from other players.