Independent energy analyst Ted Blom says Eskom wants to strong-arm the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to agree to unsustainable tariff increases, that will place a further burden on consumers.
Blom says the power utility abused the Multi Year Price Determination (MYPD) methodology in its early years of inception, to unfairly and disproportionately increase electricity tariffs.
This after Eskom accused Nersa of misrepresenting its revenue application by including matters that are still under consideration by the court and Nersa itself.
NERSA published Eskom’s fifth Multi-Year Price Determination revenue application for the 2023-2025 financial years.
In a statement, Eskom said its application for a 20.5% tariff increase only applied for one year, not three years as published by NERSA.
Blom says this is problematic.
“So Nersa is saying, now you have won the case to use the MYPD further, but now you need to supply a three or five-year program as is normal. But Eskom says it wants to submit a one-year application. It’s totally unfair. You must understand that Eskom has been crying about cost reflectively tariffs for more than eleven years.”
“The bottom line is you can’t have a monopoly and then cry for cost-reflective tariffs because there are no other tariffs to compare it with. The only tariffs is your own tariffs. You know and the public knows how inefficient and corrupt Eskom has been,” explains Blom.
Nersa accused of misrepresenting its application for the 2023 Financial Year:
