{"id":837302,"date":"2025-09-10T15:59:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=837302"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:59:48","slug":"a-simple-sorry-for-one-of-south-africas-most-expensive-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/837302\/a-simple-sorry-for-one-of-south-africas-most-expensive-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"A simple &#8216;sorry&#8217; for one of South Africa&#8217;s most expensive mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa\u2019s energy regulator apologized for a R54 billion error in calculating electricity tariffs, a mistake that will be passed on to consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The National Energy Regulator of South Africa, which determines what state power utility Eskom can charge for electricity, announced the miscalculation\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-08-28\/south-africa-sees-higher-power-prices-as-eskom-settles-dispute\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">last month<\/a>, without providing further details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Wednesday, it put the blunder down to a \u201cdata input error\u201d that was picked up by Eskom, according to a presentation to lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the mistake had been identified before the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-01-30\/south-africa-energy-regulator-grants-eskom-12-7-tariff-hike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tariff determination\u00a0<\/a>was made in January, it wasn\u2019t rectified as indicated at the time, and only discovered five months later, the regulator said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe error is regrettable; it should not have happened,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The incident brought into the spotlight South Africa\u2019s surging electricity prices and will result in them increasing by 8.76% in the next financial year, instead of the 5.36% originally agreed, and by 8.83% the year after, compared with 6.19%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That adds to an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-09-02\/south-africa-s-big-energy-users-want-review-of-eskom-tariff-hike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">eightfold surge<\/a>&nbsp;in South African electricity costs since 2008, according to the Energy Intensive Users Group, whose members including Anglo American Plc and Glencore Plc account for about 40% of the nation\u2019s electricity consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The EIUG has called for a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-09-02\/south-africa-s-big-energy-users-want-review-of-eskom-tariff-hike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">review<\/a>&nbsp;of the January tariff decision and asked Nersa to consider its pricing methodology and implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018\u2019This error by Nersa has been a big blow for the affordability of electricity in this country,\u201d Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said in an interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBecause of it, we have to rethink our overall strategy\u201d on power provision, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s energy regulator apologized for a R54 billion error in calculating electricity tariffs, a mistake that will be passed on to consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":777033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1164,2006],"class_list":["post-837302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom","tag-nersa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837302","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837303,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837302\/revisions\/837303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}