{"id":818624,"date":"2025-03-28T14:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=818624"},"modified":"2025-03-28T18:26:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T16:26:41","slug":"good-news-for-joburg-prepaid-electricity-users-with-a-big-catch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/818624\/good-news-for-joburg-prepaid-electricity-users-with-a-big-catch\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for Joburg prepaid electricity users &#8211; with a big catch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><strong>Update:<\/strong> This article has been updated to reflect the City of Joburg&#8217;s new position on the prepaid charges.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Executive Mayor of the City of Joburg, Dada Morero, has announced that the city will withdraw the 2025\/2026 budget, the City Power tariff, and the Draft Property Rates reports and put forward new proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This comes after the mayor considered the initial proposals and the impact they would have on the city&#8217;s residents, particularly with water and electricity charges<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the initial proposals was a R70 hike in service charges for prepaid electricity users in the city, taking the controversial tax to R270 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under a new proposal, these charges will remain unchanged at R200 a month (before VAT), Morero said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The renewed proposals on charges include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The proposed 5.6% increase in property rates be adjusted to 4.6%, in line with CPI.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The rebate threshold will remain at R300,000, rejecting the initial proposal to lower it to R200,000.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No increases to availability charges for both prepaid and conventional meters (R200 and R930, respectively).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Morero said that the new proposal also retains the 6kl free water for all residents\u2014something that was removed in the initial proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;As we continue this process with the upcoming public participation meetings towards finalising the 2025\/2026 Budget, we urge residents and businesses to be mindful of their water and electricity consumption; and to remain committed to paying municipal accounts, as these payments help us improve basic services,&#8221; the mayor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The zero increase to availability charges for prepaid electricity will be a relief to Joburg residents who were subjected to the tax from July 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city introduced the R200 service and capacity charge to prepaid electricity bills in 2024 and received wide backlash from households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To accommodate the charge, the city split prepaid users into two categories, &#8216;high&#8217; and &#8216;low&#8217; users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Low users represent indigent households, who are exempt from the charge. The high users are all other prepaid users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time, the city said it planned to increase these charges further in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the charge kicked in on 1 July 2024, many prepaid electricity users found that the R200 charge was deducted immediately on the first recharge of the month, leaving them with far fewer units than anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following widespread public and political backlash, Morero said the charge would be reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Morero conceded that the charge would not be going away, he said the <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/781717\/good-news-for-r2800-prepaid-electricity-tax\/\"><strong>city had committed to reviewing the amounts being charged<\/strong><\/a>, given its impact on residents in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even with no increase to the charge for 2025, residents will still be paying more for electricity, as the city increases its tariffs to align with Eskom&#8217;s tariff hikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joburg power utility City Power&#8217;s Integrated Development Plan for 2025\/26 shows the following proposed increases:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/City-Power-propsoed-charges-2025.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"667\" height=\"457\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/City-Power-propsoed-charges-2025.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-818649\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/City-Power-propsoed-charges-2025.jpg 667w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/City-Power-propsoed-charges-2025-300x206.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The City of Joburg has not yet published the updated tariff proposals for 2025\/26, but councillors have widely published the figures, including the DA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DA councillor in Joburg, Chris Santana, said that the city&#8217;s proposed increases are tone-deaf and unjustified, given the city&#8217;s state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;These above-inflation hikes will plunge residents deeper into financial distress while service delivery continues to deteriorate,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;These increases are unjustified while residents still endure frequent water outages, load-shedding, uncollected waste, and unaffordable bills based on estimated readings.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city previously justified the prepaid charge by saying that it was necessary for prepaid users to pay their fair share of maintaining the local grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While prepaid users only pay for the electricity they use, they remain connected to the grid and expect electricity on demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This means that the infrastructure has to ensure that capacity is available, which comes at a cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>City Power chief executive Tshifularo Mashava later clarified that the capacity charge is aimed at &#8220;affluent&#8221; customers and residents in affluent areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She told the Joburg Chamber of Commerce earlier this year that \u201clots of customers\u201d in these areas had moved to prepaid metering specifically to avoid paying maintenance charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These charges currently sit at around R1,000 per month for post-paid customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By pushing the capacity charges onto these more affluent prepaid customers, the city can ensure that they still contribute to essential charges and maintenance, while subsidising poorer households.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The City of Joburg has walked back a proposal to hike prepaid service and capacity charges\u2014but it&#8217;s still not going anywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":647355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[4280,22150,1641],"class_list":["post-818624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-city-of-joburg","tag-electrcity","tag-prepaid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818624"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818788,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818624\/revisions\/818788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}