Genevieve Serra|Published
The City of Cape Town has refuted claims of failing to adequately inform residents about ongoing litigation related to electricity tariff increases.
The GOOD Party claimed this was revealed in a single paragraph of NERSA’s reasons for decision on the City’s 2026/27 tariff application, which the party obtained through a PAIA request.
Brett Herron, secretary-general of the GOOD Party and City of Cape Town mayoral candidate, said the paragraph in question records that in 2025 the City “was aggrieved by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa's (NERSA) decision to impose a 12.80% electricity tariff increase for the 2025/26 financial year as opposed to the City’s desired 14.50% increase”. NERSA states that it “has filed its record and is finalising its answering affidavit”.
What NERSA’s decision says
However, Xanthea Limberg, the City’s mayoral committee member for energy, said the ongoing multi-year court process, which the City initiated to protect the integrity of its cost-of-supply and budget-determination process, was well publicised, not new and was no secret, as falsely claimed.
Herron called on the City to come clean.
“The DA has not told residents about this litigation. It was revealed in a single paragraph of NERSA’s Reasons for Decision on the City’s 2026/27 tariff application, which the GOOD Party obtained through a PAIA request,” said Herron.
“The paragraph in question records that in 2025 the City “was aggrieved by NERSA’s decision to impose a 12.80% electricity tariff increase for the 2025/26 financial year as opposed to the City’s desired 14.50% increase”. NERSA states that it “has filed its record and is finalising its answering affidavit.
“Shockingly, instead of waiting for the court’s ruling, the City went ahead and charged residents extra, anyway. The City’s 2026/27 budget reveals that in 2025/26 it added an amount to the Council-approved portion of the electricity tariff “to compensate for the NERSA decision to reduce the City’s regulated tariffs”.
“The regulator said no, but the DA-led City charged residents, nonetheless.
Herron asks whether residents could be refunded
“This is not the first time. Judgment is yet to be handed down in the City’s case against NERSA’s 2022/23 and 2023/24 tariff decisions. In both financial years the City went ahead and charged residents higher tariffs, anyway.
“The law with respect to Nersa is clear that the institution of review proceedings does not suspend the operation of the impugned decision. The regulator’s decisions are the law until a court says otherwise. No court has said otherwise…”
Herron questioned the court case: "When was this court case filed, and what exactly is the City asking the court to do?
"How much extra money (on top of the approved tariffs) did the City collect from residents in 2025/26?
"Will the City refund residents the extra charges if it loses?"
He added that families were already stretched to financial breaking point.
City says litigation was public
Limberg hit back and refuted the claims, stating that the court matter was well publicised and that the statement was incorrect.
“In 25/26 the overall increase was just 2% on average for City-supplied customers, compared to +10% in other cities,” she said.
“Within the 2% overall increase, there is a long-standing technical dispute between Nersa and the City about the baseline from which to calculate price increases for the regulated portion of the tariff.
“This stems back four years ago to 2022/23, when Nersa failed to take into account the City’s cost-of-supply study, and also failed to make a determination before the start of the municipal financial year.
“This practice has already resulted in various court rulings against Nersa, and the City awaits the outcomes of its two review applications that have already been argued in this regard. This ongoing multi year court process which the City initiated in order to protect the integrity of its cost of supply and budget determination process is well-publicised, not new and is no secret as falsely claimed,” said Limberg.
City explains its tariff position
Limberg said for the current 2026/27 year, NERSA accepted the City’s cost-of-supply and base-level determination and there was hence no need for similar litigation.
“The City managed to protect customers as the National Energy Regulator approved an increase of 8,76% for Eskom resulting in a corresponding Eskom municipal tariff increase of 9,01%,” added Limberg.
“The City managed to limit this to a 6,64% residential average increase, which is 2,37 percentage points lower than the Eskom increase to municipalities.”
She further reiterated that the claim that the City has the most expensive tariffs is false.
“In fact, for both our subsidised lifeline tariff and the upper-end home user tariff categories, the City’s tariff is cheaper than Eskom’s tariff. Home light 60A Eskom customers pay a rate of R3.43/kWh while City of Cape Town customers on a comparable tariff pay R2.83/kWh (VAT inclusive). Significantly, the City offers up to 60 free basic electricity units to customers on this tariff category, 10 units more than Eskom distributes to its most vulnerable customers.”
Sandra Dickson, a councillor for the GOOD Party and founder of STOP COCT, said Cape Town residents were already burdened by above-inflation tariff increases, fixed electricity charges.
“Cape Town residents are already burdened by above-inflation tariff increases, fixed electricity charges and other rising municipal costs,” she said.
“Residents deserve to know exactly how much additional revenue was collected, who authorised these charges, what the litigation is costing ratepayers and whether refunds will follow if the City loses.”
Queries to NERSA went unanswered by time of publication.