Staff Reporter.
Prepaid electricity users in Johannesburg will breathe a sigh of relief after the metro announced it would no longer be pushing ahead with a controversial electricity surcharge.
The city had proposed a monthly R200 surcharge for prepaid residential electricity users and a R400 surcharge for business users — a proposal which critics said would come as a shock to already under-pressure individuals and companies.
If approved, the surcharges would have kicked in from July 1, the start of the new financial year.
But City of Johannesburg said on Friday that it was no longer going ahead with the plan.
“Please note that there won’t be capacity charges (surcharge) included in the financial year’s tariffs. This was discussed extensively in the recent IDP [Integrated Development Plan] consultation meetings held at all seven city regions, and comments were received and analysed accordingly,” the city said.
It added that the final electricity tariff increases — currently a proposed 14.59% across the board — would will be tabled in council towards the end of May for consideration and approval.
“Once approved, the tariffs will be made public for residents to know about the new tariffs. The new tariffs will come to effect on July 1, 2021,” the city said.
Meanwhile, the city’s waste management company, Pikitup, did an about-turn on Thursday on its proposed R50 per household recycling levy in affluent suburbs.
“The decision to withdraw the proposal, which would have been effected from July 1 2021 if it had been acceded to during Integrated Development Plan meetings, was informed by the feedback from the meetings in which various stakeholders, including the residents of the city, objected to the proposed recycling levy,” the city said in the statement.
In September last year, the City of Joburg reported that it had recorded a significant under-collection of revenue of up to R2.9bn during lockdown levels 5 and 4.