Middelburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) presented our comments to the NERSA committee in Mbombela on Monday, 17 February 2020.
We recommended that we should stop and rethink the methodology and impact of their management decisions. Eskom sees NERSA “affordability” mandate as NERSA’s escape clause for not following the rules, and this is not beneficial to anyone.
MCCI requested that the maintenance cost for the Power Stations are ringfenced, and should not be reprioritized to other line items in the budget. A sore point for MCCI is the fact that Municipalities were allowed to default on their electricity accounts; these unpaid debts should be considered as non-technical losses. Should the current situation continues for much longer, the outcome will be that businesses would start to use alternative energy, and that would be ruinous for the municipalities and Eskom.
MCCI implore NERSA to regulate the industry – there is a much bigger picture with far-reaching consequences than the application before them.