Letter: Mayor rejects Eskom’s proposed electricity price increase

Marlene van Staden, mayor of the Modimolle-Mookgophong local municipality, writes:

I am adding my voice to that of Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and other mayors across the country to oppose Eskom’s proposed 32% tariff hike for next year.

On the last day of the public hearings held by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), Mayor Hill-Lewis stated that if granted, the standard Eskom tariff would rise by more than 32% (or to 172.6c/kWh) on 1 April 2023.

This will place further financial burdens on the already ailing local economy and residents within the Modimolle-Mookgophong municipality who are struggling to make ends meet under the rising cost of living.

Some residents are increasingly finding the municipal services tariffs unaffordable and an increase above inflation should be avoided at all costs.

Research has shown that the price of electricity has risen more than 500% over the past 16 years while over the same time, the security of electricity supply has grown steadily less reliable. Thus, making it very difficult for consumers to accept these high increases.

Eskom has not shown any meaningful progress in addressing its problems, in fact, the situation seems to be worsening with the current Stage 6 load shedding experienced over the last week.

Hence, as a municipality, we do not support any further above inflation tariff increase applications by Eskom and implores NERSA to reject it outright.

In order to mitigate the effects of Eskom’s failings, the Modimolle-Mookgophong local municipality has started a process to set a tariff that will allow the municipality to buy electricity from consumers who feed self-generated electricity back into the grid.

Our municipality has also started preparing terms of reference for calling for a request for proposals for alternative energy in the form of solar farms to argue the energy supply and even sell some to the neighboring municipalities.