Today the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) makes another submission to the National Energy Regulator (NERSA) public hearings to oppose the Eskom price increases.
Eskom applied for an increase of 15% a year for the next three years from April (the MYPD4 application), but on Friday updated this to ask for 17.1%, 15.4% and 15.5% over the three years.
OUTA opposes Eskom’s change to its price application at the end of the consultation process compromises the integrity of public participation. It also suggests that Eskom is failing in its medium- to long-term planning.
Eskom is also applying for an extra R21.624bn as clawback for under-recovery during 2017/18 (the RCA application), which will be added to the tariff hike.
In addition to these increases, NERSA has already approved a price hike of 4.41% for 2019/20, for the recovery of past RCA amounts.
OUTA proposes that Eskom should not be allowed any RCA clawback and that the MYPD4 hikes should be limited to a maximum of CPI.
•	Eskom is technically bankrupt so the recent recommendation from the advisory panel to restructure it into separate generation, transmission and distribution businesses is a crucial step towards sustainability.