Regulatory members of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) were scheduled to decide on Eskom’s multiyear tariff increases for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years on Tuesday (29 November) – but the items on the agenda were withdrawn due to apparent miscalculations.
A member of Nersa’s electricity subcommittee, Nhlanhla Gumede, submitted at the beginning of the meeting that the three items regarding Eskom’s multiyear price determination revenue application be withdrawn.
“It has unfortunately been identified that gremlins slipped into the calculations, and we need to make sure that, as a regulator, when we make decisions, we make a decision based on correct numbers,” Gumede said.
“We would like to request as the electricity subcommittee, with apologies to the energy regulator members and the public, that we would like those items to be withdrawn and that they would be brought back for a decision before the end of December,” he added.
The regulator members were expected to rule on whether Eskom is entitled to recover 32% more revenue from South African electricity users next year and, if not, how big an increase it will allow.
The members were also expected to announce the tariff increase in the subsequent year, for which Eskom applied for a further 10% increase.
In response to this last-minute withdrawal, the Democratic Alliance (DA) urged Nersa to convene an urgent press conference within the next 24 hours to give the real reasons for the postponement, “not the gremlin fairy tale that they gave”.
“To preserve the regulators’ integrity and independence, it is important that Nersa commissioners come clean and be honest with members of the public,” the party added.
The party noted that halting the decision casts a cloud over the regulator’s statutory integrity – adding to suspicions created by Nersa missing its own deadline to announce a new tariff methodology to set Eskom and municipal electricity tariffs and the recent ruling by the Gauteng High Court that its decision to approve Johannesburg City Power’s electricity tariffs for 2019/20 was irrational, irregular, and unlawful and set it aside.
Regarding Eskom’s tariff application, the DA also said that it “still stands by its position that Eskom’s 32% tariff application is outrageous and should be scrapped”.
“A week ago, we wrote to Nersa asking them to reject the entity’s tariff application request for the simple reason that the entity is unable to make a reliable supply of electricity and appears to have placed the country on an unofficial semi-permanent load shedding schedule,” the DA said.
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