Kimberley residents and stakeholders have an opportunity to let their voice be heard on the latest submission of the Sol Plaatje Municipality for the annual electricity tariff increase.
The annual electricity tariff increase is set for 1 July, depending on approval.
To view the tariff increase application of the Sol Plaatje Municipality to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), follow this link to open the document:
https://www.nersa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Sol-Plaatje-Tariff-Application-2025-2026.pdf
On this matter of proposed increased tariffs, Nersa is calling for written comments.
- Nersa’s deadline for comments is on or before 9 June.
- The Sol Plaatje Municipality encourages stakeholders and residents to provide written comments to municcomments@nersa.org.za.
Tariffs ‘sky-high, unfair’
Last year, the Kimberley Large Business Forum (KLBF), in a sharply-worded letter to the municipal manager and mayor, demands that the Sol Plaatje Municipality meet urgently and undisturbed with them. This was to immediately reverse the decade-long and latest “sky-high, non-competitive and unfair” electricity tariffs for industry and business.
The industries and businesses label these “exorbitant rates” in certain categories as the “highest in the country. It was also labelled as foul play by dysfunctional municipal management” to try to plug municipal budget deficits by hundreds of millions of rands.
According to the letter, written by KLBF chairperson Jahn Hohne, Kimberley’s industrial rates for consumption of just under and between 200 kVA and more than 500 kVA, compared against the ten best industrialised municipalities, are about 22% higher.
The “worst is that the municipality does little to stop the losses of R300 million a year that disappears through lost electricity, theft, meters that are bypassed, and defaulters,” it was stated in the letter.
Also, it read that instead of cutting off non-payers such as government departments, businesses and residents’ power supply, money is “extracted” from the industrial and businesses sector through non-competitive tariffs.
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