The Democratic Alliance (DA) has today presented arguments against Eskom’s application for tariff hikes at the Cape Town leg of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (NERSA) hearings. Eskom is currently in the process of challenging the electricity tariff increases previously approved by NERSA for 2019 to 2022, and now wants consumers to pay 10-15% more for electricity, followed by tariff increases of 50% over the next few years.
This, despite the fact that South Africans experienced over 418 hours of load-shedding in 2019 alone.
The DA’s main points of objection are:
- Consumers simply cannot afford Eskom’s proposed tariff increases;
- The utility has been entirely unable to demonstrate that they can operate prudently and efficiently, with gross financial mismanagement and procurement processes that have not been competitive enough; and,
- Eskom has demonstrated that it is wholly incapable of managing South Africa’s electricity supply. To allow an increase in the rate of their tariffs would only reward them for their failures.
The DA has therefore called on NERSA to reject this application, and to protect consumers from Eskom’s incompetence.
The DA has long maintained that the ANC Government cannot continue to allow any form of bail-outs for a state-owned entity (SOE) that is no longer viable.
With over R400 billion of debt, the ANC must accept that Eskom can no longer be saved and that the lunacy surrounding Eskom bailouts, in any form, needs to end now.
South African consumers cannot afford further tariff increases on electricity. It is unconscionable that this Eskom would ask citizens to pour more money into the blackhole of an entirely defunct SOE.