Cape Town Mayor welcomes court order on NERSA tariff timelines

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has welcomed a High Court decision mandating the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) to adopt new, fixed decision-making timelines for municipal electricity tariff decisions.

The City of Cape Town had submitted recommendations to the North Gauteng High Court for these revised NERSA timeframes. This action followed an application initially brought by AfriForum.

The Court has ordered that:  

NERSA must inform municipalities of the increases granted to Eskom by the 31st of January each year.

NERSA must finalise decisions on all municipal tariff applications by May 5.

Increased Transparency and Certainty
Mayor Hill-Lewis highlighted the benefits of this ruling for both residents and local governments.

"This will deliver benefits to all residents across South Africa, who will benefit from more transparency in electricity tariff-setting decisions," Hill-Lewis said. "And municipalities will benefit as well because they will not have to wait for NERSA to announce decisions, sometimes months after the financial year has already begun."