Nothing good at the moment

Robbie Lehman of Northcliff writes:

In the past month, four Eskom Load Shedings, 37 hours outage when Rooseveldt Park sub station caught fire two weeks ago, and four related outages since then, the latest one has just finished after 28 hours without power. Perhaps Northcliff residents should march! Joburg Power refuse to keep our power on during future load shedding even after five incidents and 74 hours down time due to bad Joburg Power, and they refuse to consider refunds on the ‘additional charges’, instituted since 2008 to bypass maximum electricity NERSA (National Energy Regulator of South Africa) tariff.

Increases include R93.85 for bad Service, R304 for network, and R17.86 for demand side management levy. 10 years ago I was charged R0.273 per kWh, with no additional charges. Now I pay R415.71 for electricity ‘availability’ before I even use the first kWh, then R1.1783 per kWh and going up by 25 per cent from July. Not easy to be a pensioner. My annual increase in cost of living is very, very different to the Stats SA number. My far above inflation major expenses in my stay-at-home retirement are City of Johannesburg, some petrol and new E-tolls, a little tobacco and a few alcoholic drinks. My major pension increases are inflation linked!

Editor’s note: Letter published unedited.