Cape Town - Criminal charges have been laid against Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille over higher electricity tariffs that came into effect last week.
National advocacy director of Consumer Fair, Imraahn Ismail-Mukaddam, said charges of corruption and theft had also been brought against mayoral committee member for finance Ian Neilson, and the city manager Achmat Ebrahim. The cases were opened at the Cape Town Central Police Station, he said.
“We believe that these City of Cape Town officials and office-bearers have a case to answer to due to the fact that they increased the electricity tariff for users in the 350 to 600 kWh a month category by 56 percent, which is 500 percent more than the increase allowed by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).”
Responding to the charges, the city’s Priya Reddy said the new tariffs had been approved by Nersa and that Ismail-Mukaddam had not “fully understood the complexity” of the tariff structure and the provision of free basic electricity.
“It should be noted that the tariffs were adopted by the council, and not by the mayor or the city manager or any other individual,” explained Reddy.
The city has two possible tariffs available for domestic consumers, which are applicable whether supplies are metered by credit or prepaid.
There is the domestic tariff, which is applicable to customers who receive more than 450kWh a month on average.
The other is the lifeline tariff, which is highly subsidised and aimed at customers who receive an average of 450kWh or less a month.
Ismail-Mukaddam said Neilson was pushing poor communities to switch to the domestic tariff so that they could subsidise the more affluent higher users.
Reddy said Ismail-Mukaddam’s claims lacked credibility as the tariffs had been fully published in local newspapers and were available on the city’s website.
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