Additional electricity shock for Joburg residents with prepaid meters
City Power has announced that residential prepaid customers will be charged an additional R200 basic charge for electricity network and service charges.
This will be charged on top of the 12.72% tariff increase that also came into effect on 1 July 2024.
The tariff changes came after the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) approved the utility's request for an average increase of 12.7%.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says the basic R200 fee will be a recurring monthly fee.
"The residential prepaid customer is currently on the lowest tariff that does not even attract any form of a basic charge.
"In other words, the residential prepaid customer does not adequately contribute to the fixed network operating cost, the cost attributed to repairing and maintaining the network to ensure availability on demand.
"City Power will over the next few years gradually subject the prepaid customer to a more appropriate contribution to the cost of supplying the particular customer category with the introduction of a total basic charge of R200.
This consists of a R70 service charge and a R130 network capacity charge before consideration of VAT," says Mangena.
Mangena adds the indigent prepaid customer will be placed on a tariff that does not attract service and capacity charges.
"The customer category will in this respect therefore continue to be subsidised by other customer categories.
"The total basic charge(R200) will be recovered from the qualifying prepaid customers using the prepayment platform, this implies that when a customer purchases electricity the R200 will be recovered upfront before any consumption-related charges," he said.
Mangena says in a case where the customer purchases the monthly purchase electricity for less than R400 at the beginning of the month, the payment will be split between covering the fixed charge and charges for consumption.
"It will however not be possible to accumulate non-payment of the total basic charge beyond one calendar month.
"In other words, should a customer on the first day want to buy electricity for the first time in the month with R300, R40 will be set aside for VAT, the balance of R260 will be split 50/50 between covering the fixed charge (R130) and the remainder R130 towards purchasing kWh's.
"The residential high prepaid customer that consumes 800kWh per month will pay some R443.81 more for the same 800kWh, increasing the total charge from R1 916.76 to R2 360.57.
"The residential prepaid high tariff will otherwise continue to be based on the inclining block tariff methodology as prescribed by NERSA. All the amounts are exclusive of VAT," explains Mangena.
He says the residential low indigent prepaid tariff will only be available to registered indigent customers who earn less than R6,000 monthly.
"City Power encourages customers who earn less than R6,000 monthly or have financial challenges to approach their nearest Service Delivery Centre (SDC) or the City of Johannesburg regional walk-in centres to make arrangements and register for the Expanded Social Package (ESP) rebates."
Qualifying citizens in the City of Johannesburg have access to Free Basic Electricity (FBE).
"Only indigent citizens qualify for FBE, and the programme is solely intended to assist them."
ALSO READ
