NATIONAL NEWS - A new fixed surcharge of R200 per month means that the City of Joburg residents who use prepaid electricity will see actual increases of up to 66% in the cost of power from this month.
This surcharge will be added to municipal rates bills for July, meaning that residential users will not realise this massive effective increase in their day-to-day prepaid electricity usage. The surcharge does not apply to properties valued at under R350 000.
The City of Tshwane has also introduced a R200 fixed monthly charge from July for both “conventional” and “prepaid” users, “whether or not electricity is consumed”. However, this forms part of a High Court challenge last week by AfriForum.
The Johannesburg’s City Power has also introduced new tiers in its tariff structure, meaning that those users who consume more than 350-kilowatt hours (kWh) in a month will see a significant jump in pricing, without even taking into account the surcharge. Previously, consumption of up to 500kWh a month was at the same tariff.
Any consumption above 500kWh is also subject to a network surcharge of 6c/kWh. The above comparison also does not take into account the effect of the municipal surcharge. Because of the fixed nature of this charge, its impact is outsized on those households who use less electricity.
A household using 300kWh a month will see an effective 66% increase in what they spend on electricity, more than five times higher than the 12% increase in the underlying tariff.
