Recently at the office, I received a message on my phone from my Fungi application – it’s time to load money for electricity again.
From the conversation that followed with colleagues, it appears everyone has suddenly become several hundred rands worse off within a year. Some as much as R1 000 on their electricity bills.
Then there are those who still receive a traditional electricity bill, on which astronomical amounts are simply loaded out of the blue. And to sort it out is nearly impossible. Meanwhile, you just have to pay, or the municipality will simply cut you off.
The annual tug-of-war between Eskom and the price regulator, Nersa, leaves consumers increasingly cold. This, usually accompanied by talk that our electricity is actually still cheap. That’s why it remains sensible for those who can afford it to increasingly replace electricity consumption with self-sufficiency, for example through solar panels.
The big snake in the grass, however, is profit-taking by metro councils and municipalities. On average, they load about 16% profit onto the consumer’s electricity bill. Some even more. Some of the councils, which are notorious for poor management, wasteful spending and corruption, make up to a third of their income from electricity. It is time that serious questions are asked about this.
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The campaign for the local election is the ideal opportunity for voters to place this on the agenda. Local government should in any case not be about party politics, but rather about service delivery. Ask your local candidates what their policy is on the cost of your electricity bill.
Tell them that, rather than blue, yellow or green pamphlets with photos and old promises, this will determine your vote.
Electricity bills should in principle be for electricity consumption. Other services must be handled according to a clear and accountable cost scale. Transparent and separate.
Too large salary bills, too expensive vehicles, excessive entertainment and catering bills, and then the notorious tenders become too tasty a gravy train from our electricity bills.
On top of that, we get no value for money – the overall state of service delivery speaks for itself.
Most voters don’t get meals at work. They must pack their own sandwich or buy something at the work canteen, or elsewhere.
Tshwane and Cape Town have already scrapped meals for general council meetings. They can easily go further and make sure this applies to all committee sittings as well.
But in Johannesburg, they still eat very well at voters’ expense. Up to nearly half a million rand per council sitting. This is just one example of how a general and undefined profit levy on electricity bills can be abused.
The number of councillors and duplicated functions with other government levels are further issues that need attention. The number of officials versus value in outputs is another issue.
Every candidate who makes himself or herself available to become a councillor should be informed about the details of these matters.
So, armed with a plan on how to reduce profit-taking on our electricity bills, wait for them with your electricity bill and get their position on record. Candidates who have voters’ interests at heart will show this through meaningful solutions. The time for everyone to get their backs up about this is now.
- Barnard Beukman is editor of the Afrikaans weekly newspaper, Die Papier.
