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Nelspruit - Electricity may become cheaper in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and parts of Gauteng as government sets up regional electricity distribution companies.
Currently, municipalities buy electricity from Eskom and then sell it to consumers in their municipal area, adding on additional fees for supply and management. But the erratic supply of electricity by municipalities and the non-delivery of free basic electricity to indigent residents prompted national government to establish the parastatal company Electricity Distribution Industry (EDI) Holdings in 2006.
EDI was tasked with dividing South African into regions and establishing Regional Electricity Distribution companies (REDs) to take over the supply and management of electricity.
Six regions were identified: RED 1 covers the Western Cape and parts of the Northern Cape, RED 2 covers the Orange Free State, RED 3 covers the Eastern Cape, RED 4 covers North West province and parts of Gauteng, RED 5 covers KwaZulu-Natal and RED 6 covers Mpumalanga, Limpopo and other parts of Gauteng.
On Monday, mayors, councillors and senior officials from 60 municipalities in the RED 6 cluster met in Nelspruit with officials from national and provincial government, Eskom, EDI and the South African Local Government Association (Salga) to check on the progress made and challenges associated with distributing electricity.
RED 6 regional manager, Diamond Mushwana, said consensus was reached at the meeting that the electricity industry needed to be restructured in light of the frustrations expressed by consumers over the erratic supply of electricity.
"Government has decided to restructure electricity distribution. The REDs will be formed at regional level to replace Eskom distribution and local municipalities in terms of supplying electricity" said Mushwana.
He said there was a lack of consistency amongst municipalities when supplying free electricity.
"We also realised that the electricity tariffs between Eskom and local municipalities are not the same in terms of supplying electricity," said Mushwana.
He said the middle man would be cut out when the REDs buy directly electricity directly from Eskom to sell to consumers at an affordable price.
- African Eye