SA opposition files court bid to halt power-price hike

South Africa’s main opposition party asked the High Court to stop the nation’s energy regulator from raising power prices by almost a fifth.

The Democratic Alliance wants the court to interdict the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s approval of Eskom to hike tariffs by 18.7% in the 2024 fiscal year on the grounds that it will make power unaffordable for some of the nation’s inhabitants, according to an emailed statement. The increase, set to go into effect in April, would be the biggest since 2011-12.

“The DA rejects this astronomical increase,” the party said.

The tariff increase is one of the factors the government is using to determine how much of Eskom’s debt it plans to take on. The National Treasury said in October that the state may shift as much as two-thirds of the power company’s about R400 billion ($23 billion) of loans onto its own balance sheet to help stabilize the company.

Eskom has been implementing electricity outages of as long as 12 hours a day since January 10, with about half of its generating capacity offline. The utility subjected the country to a record 205 days of rolling blackouts last year as coal-fired plants regularly broke down and because it lacked the money to buy diesel needed to supplement its generation capacity.