The unintended consequences of Joburg’s R200 charge for prepaid electricity

While the City of Johannesburg is ignoring calls to drop its R200 fixed service charge on the prepaid high-usage electricity tariff, low-income consumers are suffering the consequences which another department will end up having to pay for.

City Power introduced the R200 (R230 including VAT) fixed charge on 1 July to “share the costs of maintaining electricity infrastructure with its customers” and ensure a fair distribution of the upkeep costs, helping to sustain reliable service amid challenges like cable theft and illegal connections.

Although the city says that indigent consumers, who are defined as people earning less than R6 000 per month, will not pay this charge, an extra R230 is a large expense for low-income consumers who fall outside this bracket.

ALSO READ: You will still be charged R200, even if you don’t buy prepaid electricity

10kg bag of rice or electricity charge?

A 10kg bag of rice that can help feed a family of four for a month costs an average of R199.16, according to the prices in the household food basket compiled by the Pietermaritzburg Justice and Dignity Group for Johannesburg in July. Imagine a woman must stop buying this for her family to afford the electricity charge.

Julie Smith, researcher at the group, says people who have to pay for electricity do not have a choice not to and therefore the R230 will mean cutting spending somewhere else. “We know where the cut is likely to be: the food budget, as it is the only expense women can control.”

ALSO READ: Outa calls on City of Johannesburg to scrap R200 electricity charge

She says all South African staple food, maize meal, rice, beans, potatoes and children’s mealie meal porridge must all be cooked first to be edible and therefore if the City of Johannesburg makes electricity even more unaffordable for the majority of black South African citizens, the immediate consequence is increasing malnutrition, ill health and poor school results.

Another department will pay for City of Joburg’s electricity charge

“This means that the province will have to then put more money into health care and education. Therefore, City Power can increase the affordability burden but another department will have to pay for the consequences and the expense will be higher and for much longer.”

Basically, she says, this means that the decision to add on an extra R230 should not be the decision just of City Power but all municipal, provincial and national departments, including Treasury who will have to find the extra money to pay for the negative consequences of the decision.

ALSO READ: SA consumers cutting electricity and food to survive cost-of-living crisis

Smith points out that a developmental state should actually be trying to do everything possible to get people to use electricity because it is safer and has major equity and developmental benefits. 

“There are no alternatives for electricity in the city, except for paraffin and bad coal (the dust that is mixed with clay, or just finding coal from somewhere that is not likely safe and marginally legal) that are major fire and health hazards.

“Ultimately if the state makes electricity inaccessible, and as families cannot survive without it, the state is forcing people into illegality, undermining its legitimacy to govern.”

Winter in Johannesburg without electricity

Winter in Johannesburg can be bitterly cold, Smith says, with mothers having to heat water to bath their children. This means more children will get sick. They will miss school, spend more time in clinics and hospitals and their mothers will miss work, which is a productivity and economic consequence.

She says consumers also use electricity to keep safe, such as lights on at night.

“Imagine having small children and waking up in the morning with no electricity, going to an awful job, coming home in the dark, having small children and not having electricity – not just for a day but every day during Johannesburg’s bitter winter. How can you not expect a social fallout?”

Smith says in addition, a R230 add-on directly and immediately hurts women. “It is an anti-women, anti-children, anti-worker policy. It is extremely stupid and it should be immediately stopped.”