Residents of the Mangaung Metro Municipality will continue to live in dire conditions with shoestring budgets necessitated after new tariffs have been approved by the council of the cash-strapped municipality. New tariffs for electricity, water, refuse collection, property rates and taxes have been approved by the municipal council in line with the 2023-’24 financial term.
Most of these tariff increases became effective from 1 July, but will only reflect on consumers’ accounts from August.
However, the new electricity tariff is already in place – the hike of 15,10% applies in the three municipalities in the Free State being serviced by Centlec. These are the Mangaung Metro Municipality, as well as Kopanong, and Mohokare.
Centlec announced that the electricity hike was in line with the guidelines of the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). The new tariff will be applicable for the period of 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024.
Residents are already feeling the pinch to pay high tariffs, while contending with longstanding load shedding, which further cripples South Africa’s economy and negatively impacts on the potential growth prospects of several businesses.
Customers who buy their electricity directly from Eskom are equally affected and compelled to dig deeper into their pockets following the steep price hike.
The power supplier implemented an 18,65% tariff increase in April, as granted by Nersa.
The power utility had initially requested an increase of over 32%, almost double what the regulator ultimately approved, citing the higher cost of fuel among other reasons.
Amidst these tariff increases, Eskom continues lamenting bad debt collection by several defaulting municipalities in the country, which further obstructs the entity’s ability to fulfil its obligation of supplying power without disruption to consumers.
This negatively impacts on its ability to pay workers their salaries, and hampers the maintenance of power plants.
The entity blames chronic load shedding on the defaulting municipalities.
As far as their Eskom account is concerned, only two out of 19 municipalities in the Free State are considered debt-free. The rest still owe billions due to their failure to pay the power utility over the course of several years.
The two municipalities free from debt to the power supplier are Setsoto, governed by the ANC, and the coalition-run Metsimaholo.
Setsoto services the towns Clocolan, Ficksburg, Marquard, and Senekal, while Metsimaholo services Sasolburg, Oranjeville, and Deneysville.
Combined, the 17 defaulting Free State municipalities led by the ruling ANC party owe Eskom more than R18 975 589 308 in overdue accounts.
The three municipalities with the largest amount of debt are the Ngwathe, Maluti-A-Phofung and Matjhabeng local municipalities.
On average, these municipalities have been observed to consume R200 million’s (97 GWh) worth of energy on a monthly basis.
