{"id":91302,"date":"2015-06-22T14:24:59","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T12:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=91302"},"modified":"2015-06-22T14:24:59","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T12:24:59","slug":"6-reasons-why-eskoms-price-increase-should-be-rejected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/91302\/6-reasons-why-eskoms-price-increase-should-be-rejected\/","title":{"rendered":"6 reasons why Eskom&#8217;s price increase should be rejected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government\u2019s War Room in December may have produced a \u201cFive Point Plan\u201d aimed at solving the electricity crisis\u201a but the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday came up with six reasons why Eskom shouldn\u2019t be granted its proposed hiked electricity tariffs.<\/p>\n<p>The party\u2019s announcement comes ahead of this week\u2019s National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) hearings into the utility\u2019s 25.3% tariff increase application for the 2015-16 financial year.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Topping the DA\u2019s list is the \u201ceconomic impact\u201d it would have as \u201ceconomic growth is stagnant\u201a unemployment is increasing\u201a inflation is accelerating and the currency is in decline\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Secondly\u201a the party says the \u201cincrease will kill jobs\u201d as the \u201cimpact\u2026is particularly acute for small\u201a medium and micro-sized enterprises who\u2026are the driving force behind job creation in South Africa\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Thirdly\u201a that Eskom is in need of \u201cconstant government bailouts to stay afloat is\u2026indicative of major structural challenges that can\u2019t be addressed by merely raising tariffs\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The official opposition also has an issue with \u201csecrecy surrounding fuel contracts\u201d\u201a as \u201cEskom still refuses to make critical information\u201d about these available to the public and there is \u201cspeculation that Eskom is paying well in excess of the retail prices for its fuel in order to enrich well-connected African National Congress cadres\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The fifth reason Nersa should turn down the hike is that \u201cEskom makes the misleading claim that its request for an additional tariff increase stems predominantly from unforeseen fuel costs arising from the purchase of diesel to minimise load-shedding\u201d. Instead\u201a the DA said\u201a the \u201creliance on diesel stems from mismanagement\u201a cost over-runs\u201a and delays in the construction of Medupi and Kusile\u201d power plants.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The final argument from the DA is that Eskom should \u201cseek funding from the private sector through the sale of an equity stake in Eskom\u201d to strengthen its \u201cfinancial position\u201a introduce skilled board members to the parastatal\u201a and improve overall management of Eskom\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cIt is the DA&#8217;s considered opinion that while the proposed tariff increases may be good for Eskom\u201a they are clearly bad for the economy\u201a\u201d the party said.<\/p>\n<p>The DA\u2019s shadow energy minister\u201a Gordon Mackay\u201a will make these submissions to Nersa on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Source: RDM News Wire.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Eskom<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/90904\/eskoms-sums-dont-add-up-energy-expert\/\">Eskom\u2019s sums don\u2019t add up: energy expert<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/90894\/higher-tariffs-or-power-cuts-you-choose-eskom\/\">Higher tariffs or power cuts \u2013 you choose: Eskom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/90760\/electricity-tariff-hike-will-cripple-sa\/\">Electricity tariff hike will cripple SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/90672\/eskom-doesnt-need-a-massive-price-hike-ceo\/\">Eskom doesn\u2019t need a massive price hike: CEO<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Democratic Alliance (DA) has presented six reasons why Eskom shouldn\u2019t be granted its proposed hiked electricity tariffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":89420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[25,1329,1164],"class_list":["post-91302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-active","tag-da","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91302","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\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91306,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91302\/revisions\/91306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}