Municipal tariffs "excessive" and "illegal" - business chambers

[Jan]

Court battle over South Africa's "illegally high" electricity prices

Two of South Africa's major business chambers allege that municipalities are making excessive profits from electricity tariffs by charging their customers much more than it costs to provide power.

The Pietermaritzburg & Natal Midlands Business Chamber (PMCB) and Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber have taken on the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) over its approach to municipal tariffs.

 

[borro]

It’s a living.

 

[Martin_P]

Municipalities pays R1.44 and charges me R2.54(flat rate) that's over 75% what the hell.

 

[PhireSide]

Everyone wants a piece of the SA citizen pie

 

[rubber_otter]

Everyone wants a piece of the SA citizen pie

Everyone get a piece of the pie. So much so that the people that are supposed to keep everyone in check are overrun with scummy people stealing ****, so they cannot keep up trying to rectify everything. It's out of control.

 

[ThinkCentre]

Even the holy DA is not exempted from this practice!

 

[Petec]

You think Guv makes a killing from fuel?
Ha! Water and electricity from the municipalities to consumers, makes the cANCer blush.

 

[ToxicBunny]

I'm fully in support of this actually.

Municipalities need to justify their increases over and above the Eskom one in my opinion, and it needs to be based on a fair and efficient use of revenue to maintain/upgrade the electrical infrastructure.

This whole concept of cross-subsidising things is all wonderful and great in cloud fairyland, but in reality its just pushing more and more people to the breaking point and then there won't be any cross-subsidisation when the rate paying base collapses even further.

**Looks at my municipal bill which has more than tripled in the last 10 years**

 

[porchrat]

I tend to agree. Provide a service at a price related to the cost of providing that service.

 

[system32]

Electricity tariffs funding corruption and theft and township residents - doesn't that just make ratepayers so happy.

Only 4% of Alex residents paying for electricity - City Power

The utility said it was taking action to address overloading on the network and to recover lost revenue caused by illegal connections.

ewn.co.za

 

[Swa]

Is cross subsidising not illegal as municipalities aren't allowed to make a profit? In any case we know it's not used on other services for the paying residents but to subsidise those not paying. That is enough to make it illegal.

 

[garyc]

Another problem is that every time Eskom gets an increase the municipalities get an increase. Maybe their slice should be frozen for a while.