DA exposes, votes against last minute ANC changes to tariffs costing 28% more for some houses/month

ANC used its majority in council to push through a vote on changes to electricity tariff structure (or blocks) that will lead to households (on conventional or prepaid tariff) using 350 units electricity a month paying 28,6% more for electricity per month in winter

While the DA used our time in council to expose this drastic change, warned against it being approved and voted against the decision.

Where these households previously paid a lower tarif for the first 350 units electricity they buy a month, the Centlec proposal submitted to NERSA on 7 June 2021 reduces the amount of units that can be bought on the lower tariff block to 150 units.

Thus the cost of the units that these households will buy from 151 up to 350 units a month increases by 39%!. This effectively means that a household using 350 units a month will pay 28,6 % more in total per month for electricity.

These changes to the tariff structure were never part of the draft tariffs that were made available for public comment in March. This is a legal requirement. 

For more information on the final tariffs as approved, visit: http://mangaung.co.za/2021/06/11/determination-of-tariffs-and-charges-for-the-2021-2022-financial-year/

One positive change this year, that we were already asking for last year during the hard lockdown, is that the Property Rates tariff for businesses was not increased at all. Unfortunately they decided to continue to increase the residential property rate by 6%.

The only way to prevent the ANC from continuing to misuse their majority in council is for enough voters to vote for the only party with a good record where we govern a municipality, the DA. We can and must bring down the ANC from 57% in council to below 50% in the upcoming municipal election!