Cape Town - Members of the Electricity Tariffs Must Fall campaign demonstrated in front of Parliament on Monday in a bid to highlight ratepayers’ plight caused by high electricity tariffs.
This after the City dismissed as misinformation the group’s calls to lower the tariffs and attributed the impact to Eskom’s 17.8% electricity increases.
The City said its electricity tariffs were legal and there was no unlawful addition to the tariff schedule for the 2021 financial year. It said those claiming this, were spreading misinformation about the tariffs.
The City said assistance for struggling residents was available on a case-by-case basis, but it could not afford to provide free electricity or to offer blanket relief to everyone, regardless of the customer's circumstances.
The campaign group founder Natasha Selbourne said families faced the reality of having to choose between purchasing food or electricity. She said because of the inhumane debt collection policy some families were receiving 10 units for R100 as the City took 90% which she said should not be allowed as it amounted to fraud.
“The City is accusing us of spreading misinformation, but they're the ones misinforming people while they are busy making money out of citizens. They are not a business, and should not be making a profit out of ratepayers.
“The City is supposed to be protecting us but instead it is abusing its customers. The fact of the matter is people on the ground cannot cope,” she said.
Responding to the City's statement, STOP COCT founder Sandra Dickson said the City blaming Eskom for the increase was inappropriate.
“The City blames Eskom for its tariff of R2.73 (incl. VAT) for Domestic users in the 0 – 600-unit block. Eskom charges for the same category of users is R1.82 (incl. VAT) per unit.
“The CoCT’s tariff is 50% higher than the Eskom tariff. The City claims that it kept the tariff increase at 13.45% while Eskom charged it a 17.8% increase.
“By the City's own statements, 65% of costs are bulk electricity purchases from Eskom which leaves 35% for maintenance and salary costs which should be linked to inflation and even lower because the City ’froze’ salary increases as per the Budget statement in May 2021.
“It is therefore an untruth that the 13.45% increase was ’kept low’ by the City. In fact, the full Eskom increase was passed on to ratepayers,” Dickson said.
Dickson said ratepayers were not asking for free electricity, but the City’s inflexible policies to provide relief, should be revised and put on a more equitable basis.
Meanwhile, investigations are under way to determine the cause of an explosion at the Unit 4 of Medupi Power Station on Sunday which resulted in the suspected tripping in Unit 5. Eskom said the investigation would also indicate the extent of the impact on the national electricity grid.