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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape is challenging Sol Plaatje municipality to revise its ludicrously expensive electricity tariffs to reflect cost price rates.

This comes after Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter last week told the Cape Town Press Club that Sol Plaatje municipality adds the highest mark up to electricity bought from Eskom, at 84%, in effect making Kimberley’s electricity the most expensive power in the entire South Africa.

This is not the first time that Kimberley has been thrown into the spotlight for its ridiculous electricity tariffs. In 2018, municipal management was ousted due to its decision to add a R260 flat fee for electricity, that sparked the ire of Kimberley residents and led to devastating protests in the city.

While Kimberlites have long since known that we have been digging much deeper into our pockets for electricity, we are glad that De Ruyter has actually confirmed this because now Sol Plaatje cannot again try to hide from truth, like it always does. In fact, just last week during a legislature portfolio committee meeting, the municipality’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr Zahid Cader tried to downplay Sol Plaatje’s unreasonable electricity hikes by stating that they had only increased the tariff by 6,22% for the current year, conveniently failing to say by just how much the municipality had increased the tariff in prior years.

The fact is that we are now paying 84% more for electricity than what Eskom sells electricity for. This is simply unacceptable. It is little wonder that businesses no longer want to invest and expand in Kimberley and rather opt to take job creating initiatives elsewhere.

It is utterly shameful to make residents of this rundown city pay more for electricity than fellow South Africans who reside in far better run municipalities in the country. Kimberley is in the worst physical state that it has been in since 1994. Even President Cyril Ramaphosa was taken aback by the damning state of the city during his visit for the ruling party’s January 8th celebrations.

At the same time, more and more people are sitting in the dark and in the cold because they rather opt to buy food than electricity which, due its astronomical pricing, has become somewhat of a luxury in Kimberley. This, while De Ruyter says that Eskom’s electricity is actually amongst the cheapest in the world.

At the same time, Sol Plaatje wants to charge residents an arm and a leg for electricity, then it has the audacity to default on its own payment to Eskom. In this regard, Cader last week told the portfolio committee that Sol Plaatje owed Eskom R140 million. In his own words he said this was “shocking” as Sol Plaatje had always managed to pay Eskom in the past.

Electricity is a basic necessity and it is also a tool through which to ignite the economy. It should not be manipulated into becoming a revenue generating source for municipalities that don’t even bother to pay back Eskom.

The DA notes an acknowledgment of De Ruyter’s comments by executive mayor, Patrick Mabilo and his commitment to institute an inquiry into the electricity mark up. However, if Mabilo is really serious about serving the people of Kimberley, he will ensure that the electricity tariff is reduced to cost price and find other ways of generating revenue for the city, including the implementation of better debt collection measures. He owes this to all the people of Kimberley, who have lost all sense of pride in the city and who have to put up with daily municipal induced challenges relating to potholed roads, sewerage overflows, as well as a filthy, unkempt city.

While the DA awaits feedback from Mabilo we will also not waste time referring Sol Plaatje’s unaffordable tariffs to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for a review.

Sol Plaatje will definitely not bring back the sparkle to Kimberley by turning away investors and turning off the lights. The municipality must act now to make electricity affordable!

Issued by The DA