Africa-Press – South-Africa. The public has until 21 January 2026 to comment on energy regulator Nersa’s plan to force South African energy users to pay Eskom an additional R76 billion for its mistakes.
Following a bruising court order in December 2025, rejecting a settlement agreement between the regulator and power utility, Nersa has published a consultation paper to solicit public comments on the matter.
The settlement was reached in secret between Nersa and Eskom in late 2025, after the regulator “accidentally” excluded billions of rands from its calculation when granting Eskom its allowable price hikes in its MYPD6 application.
The problems surround Eskom’s Regulated Asset Base (RAB), which Nersa allows Eskom to earn a return on. Key to this is allowing the utility to recover some of the depreciated value of the assets.
Eskom flagged errors with Nersa’s determination on its MYPD6 application, claiming that R107 billion in depreciation was omitted from the equation.
Nersa subsequently admitted to mistakes being made in its calculations, but posited that it only underestimated by R44 billion. The two parties then agreed to settle on a R54 billion difference.
Had the settlement been confirmed, South Africans would have seen electricity tariffs increase by around 9% in 2026 and 2027.
However, when they sought to make the settlement an order of the court, the whole affair rapidly gained public attention, with groups such as AfriForum and the Minerals Council of South Africa looking to intervene.
One of the key challenges to the settlement was that neither Nersa nor Eskom consulted with the public in arriving at the settlement, nor were any details provided on how the R54 billion figure was reached.
Nersa had argued that it wasn’t necessary to consult the public because it was simply correcting an error made in its calculations. It added that extensive consultations had already been done on the MYPD6 application.
However, the opponents argued that South Africans in general would be affected by the settlement and thus had a direct interest in the matter and the scale of the agreement.
Because of the settlement, the electricity price hikes for 2026 and 2027, already running at double the inflation rate, would have ended up close to triple the inflation rate.
This would place consumers, businesses and entire industries under severe strain—not something that could be flippantly brushed aside.
On the hook for R76 billion
The High Court ultimately agreed with the critics, stating that the secret deal contravened all mandates for transparency, while the numbers reached in the settlement appeared to be a “thumb-suck”.
To remedy the situation, Nersa was ordered to launch a short public consultation phase to ensure that those who would be most affected by its mistake had a chance to provide their input.
On 30 December 2025, Nersa published a consultation paper on the matter, seeking stakeholder input on ten key questions, providing an outline on how the matter ended up where it did.
Notably, however, the consultation paper shows that South Africans at large are on the hook for R76 billion owed to Eskom.
“Eskom’s Generation business will be awarded a further R76 066 million over the MYPD6 period comprised of R14 036 million in returns and R62 030 million in depreciation,” Nersa said.
Because the electricity tariffs must be approved by March 2026, the new public consultation process must take place on an expedited timeline.
The closing date for the submission of comments is 21 January 2025 at 16h00.
Written comments can be forwarded to [email protected]; hand-delivered to Kulawula House, 526 Madiba Street, Arcadia, Pretoria; or posted to PO Box 40343, Arcadia, 0083, Pretoria.
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