Johannesburg - The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) will seek an urgent interdict in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria this week to stop the implementation of the 9.4 percent electricity price increase.
“After various unfruitful requests by... Outa and other parties to receive the written reasons from Nersa (National Energy Regulator of SA) for its decision to permit Eskom to implement a 9.4 percent electricity tariff increase, the organisation has been left with no choice but to approach the North Gauteng High Court in an attempt to obtain an interdict against the implementation of the increase on April 1,” Outa director of legal affairs Ivan Herselman said on Friday.
Read: Eskom price hike in balance
In its answer to Outa’s request to supply the public with the reasons for its decision to grant Eskom a 9.4 percent increase, Nersa had declined to provide details about its decision that gave rise to the implementation of the higher tariff, he said.
In its response to Outa, Nersa cited possible “confidential” information that it first had to clear with Eskom, before it could release parts of the information to the public.
“These answers will in all likelihood only come to the fore well after the electricity tariff increases have been implemented.”
This cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire public participation process of Eskom’s regulatory clearing account hearings.
Outa believes that the tariff hike should be challenged before being implemented on April 1. Outa’s executive team had unanimously decided that it was in the public’s best interests to intervene with haste, since it was unlikely that “this egg could ever be unscrambled after the tariff has already been increased”.
Should Outa succeed with the interdict, Eskom would be prohibited from implementing the increase until Nersa had provided Outa and the public with sufficient reasons for their decision.
ANA