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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Johannesburg is once more, calling for the scrapping of the Johannesburg Electricity Surcharge.

Beyond the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Finance, Cllr Dada Morero’s apparent commitment to reviewing the surcharge following severe public outcry, we hope that this will be a lesson to the CoJ’s Executive in public participation.

Since the draft regulations and fees were published, we have been calling on the City to increase their focus on public participation and awareness – this did not happen. In fact, thousands of people had no idea that they would be met with an additional charge on their accounts. This failure falls squarely on the shoulders of the City’s executive.

Before implementing their desperate money-grabbing surcharge, the City should have:

Held a public awareness drive, and focussed on getting those who qualify on the indigent register;

Been transparent about how many people are currently on the indigent register, and subsequently excluded from this surcharge;

Embarked on a mass education programme on both the use and extent to which the surcharge would be implemented, as well as doing real effort to notify residents of the public participation process.

Implementing the above would have assisted in alleviating the burden of those hit hardest by this extra expense. Evidenced by the overwhelming public support for our, 20 000 strong petition, these measures would have led to the elimination of this unreasonable surcharge.

The City must learn to listen to residents, they did not listen to residents when they unconstitutionally rolled out expensive VIP-protection and blue lights for their executive, and they went out of their way not to listen to residents when this surcharge was being considered.

We urge the Executive to listen to residents who find themselves in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. R230 might not be much for them, but has a detrimental impact on the lives of thousands.

Issued by Cllr Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku - DA Johannesburg Caucus Leader