A “clerical error” by Nersa means South Africans face billions in extra electricity costs while officials dodge real accountability.
As long-suffering South African consumers – those who don’t have illegal electricity connections – contemplate the next three years of above-inflation power cost hikes, they should be comforted that the responsible party doesn’t think it is really to blame.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) admitted it made an error in the complex calculations around what Eskom should be allowed to charge customers.
In a letter to the DA’s shadow minister for mineral resources and energy, Kevin Mileham, dated 4 September, Nersa accepted that it made a “clerical error”.
However, Nersa chair Thembani Bukula insisted this “did not arise from incompetence, but was the result of a version control issue”.
Whatever that is, it resulted in R54 billion extra, which will have to be recovered from consumers at rates considerably higher than originally granted to Eskom by the regulator.
ALSO READ: Nersa admits R54 billion error first identified in January but never rectified
Effectively, Eskom’s charges will reset to what they should have been… outrageous.
Apparently, the original calculation error was made worse by the “technical team” having confirmed it had been rectified – when it hadn’t.
How is this all possible?
And how does Nersa expect to claim, as it did in parliament, that there will be consequences for those responsible, when it has already asserted the error was not the result of incompetence?
You have to just shake your head in wonder at how the comrades – and those in Nersa would probably have been “cadre-deployed” by the ANC – can show such talent at making excuses and ducking responsibility.
ALSO READ: Major power users call on Nersa to reopen Eskom tariff determination
If only – and this does seem like a far-away fantasy – those people running our lives, both as politicians and officials, could be as good at doing their jobs as they are at manufacturing “explanations”.
Heads should roll for this.
And because the buck should stop at the top, Nersa’s top man should fall on his sword.
