High costs of electricity: The DA must explain its own role in spiralling prices 

12 August 2024 

The Democratic Alliance must use its requested debate on high electricity prices to explain to Cape Town residents why it implemented above NERSA-approved increases for both the 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years.  

The DA wrote to the Speaker last week to request an urgent parliamentary debate on the increasing costs of power as a matter of national importance. It followed permission granted to Eskom to clawback billions from consumers for the 2021/22 financial year, on top of an expected application for a 36.15% tariff increase for 2025.

While GOOD supports the call for a debate, South Africans must not be fooled by the DA who is either unaware of what’s happening in their own municipalities or is deliberately trying to mislead the country.  

For the 2021/22 financial year, the NERSA-approved guideline increase was 7.47%, yet the City of Cape Town implemented a 9.6% hike. The next year saw NERSA approve 15.1%, while the City went ahead with a 17.6% increase.

In both cases, the municipality’s application to apply for an increase above the NERSA guideline was dismissed, and the City continues to spend millions on legal costs fighting these illegal increases in court without any success.

Moreover, in July this year, the DA demanded an end to the unfair R200 electricity surcharge in the City of Johannesburg. But at the same time, in the DA-led Cape Town, they have imposed a similar R245 fixed tariff on properties valued over R1 million. 

The DA has played an undeniable role in driving up the prices of electricity and is cleary trying to divert attention away from their own greedy, and illegal, actions.  

We must urgently debate this crisis and DA must use it to finally come clean. 

Issued by Anton Louw, GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor, 12 August 2024