Municipal electricity accounts with their inclining block tariffs cause headaches for pre-paid users as well as conventional users in Makhado (Louis Trichardt).
One pre-paid user found that he has to buy as much electricity for the last week of the month as for the whole rest of the month. He even wondered if someone was not adjusting the speed of the units, since they also seem to fly faster and faster. Both the Makhado Municipality and an electrician, Mr Ronnie Levine, agreed that fortunately that is not possible or probable.
On the August accounts the first 50 kilowatt units (kWh) are charged at just below 71c (67c last financial year), the next 300 at nearly 91c (85c last year), the third block from 351 to 600 kilowatt units cost per unit R1.22 ( R1.14 last year) and above 600 units you cough up R1.46 (R1.36 last year). The basic charge for conventional users at residential properties is R141.60 (R131.90 last year).
For conventional users the headache is the haphazard way that the meter readers read the electricity. The manager of the SRPA (Soutpansberg Ratepayers Association), Ms Lani Senekal, said that meter readings are not taken regularly and that they insisted on an answer from the municipality on that matter. The result of late readings is that more units get billed at the higher tariffs.
In an e-mail to the Zoutpansberger dated 22 September the municipality said that they agreed with the statement that with an inclining block tariff the municipality has to ensure that meters are read meticulously every month.
In practice, however, the meters are not read regularly. Regarding the very common complaint of this “unfair practice” of not reading meters regularly and consequently the public is billed on the total accumulated units at the highest tariff; the municipality felt that the responsibility should be shared. “It is the responsibility of both the consumer and official of the municipality to ensure that those units are apportioned according to the period of readings. And there is no challenge in addressing the omission of one month in the next one,” the municipality stated.
Other challenges that ratepayers experience are that their payments are not captured on the day of payment leading to the unnecessary charging of adjustments and monthly accounts that are not delivered. In this regard, Senekal urged ratepayers to phone the municipality with their account number at hand and rather get the correct amount than paying an estimated amount.
The question many ratepayers is asking, is whether it is legal according to municipal policy to charge according to the inclining block tariff. “The inclining block tariff is according to our municipal tariff policy which is compliant to NERSA regulations…. NERSA tariffs are implemented by municipalities countrywide, as guided by NERSA regulations,” the municipality stated.
The SRPA (Soutpansberg Ratepayers Association) said that they provided the municipality with a copy of their [the municipality's] own policy. “It refers to ‘a fixed tariff’ and no mention is made of inclining block tariffs,” SRPA chairperson Inga Gilfillan said this week.
The implementation date for the new tariffs was 1 July 2014. The meter reading date on the August accounts (that are due in September) is 10 June. Thus consumers are already billed on the new tariffs though the consumption was in June.
