The Democratic Alliance (DA) and trade union Solidarity want Eskom to release a full, unedited report of its application for a 53% tariff increase, they said on Tuesday.
In separate statements, both said electricity consumers were entitled to know why the increase was needed.
”There are no substantial grounds for Eskom to keep information regarding the tariff hike a secret as Eskom is a public enterprise owned by the state and financed by public money,” the DA said.
”Given that, if approved, the tariff increase will have a substantial effect on consumers, the public cannot be expected to accept the hike without knowing the grounds upon which the request has been made.”
Solidarity said it would write to Eskom on Tuesday asking for its reasons for withholding parts of the report. ”Given the circumstances in which Eskom finds itself, it is in the interest of every electricity consumer to be fully informed of the planned tariff hike,” it said.
The application was due to have been published at noon on Tuesday on the website of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, to enable public comment, but Eskom secured permission to remove sections deemed commercially sensitive.
The amended version was posted after 2pm but problems accessing the document, due to high traffic on the site, were reported.
Earlier, Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger said the application to withhold sections was to protect the company’s position in ”hard-core” coal sales deals. He said that without this stance, the company might have to pay more for coal, pushing the price of electricity up even more.
The company is currently in negotiations with mining houses to buy about R45-million-worth of coal, currently at a spot price of about $100 a ton, said Etzinger.
”Unfortunately this means that discussions are hardcore. We are not talking about 1% or 2% here or there, so we have to make sure our negotiating position is as strong as possible.”
The application document contained details of deals already concluded, he said.
”It is a sound commercial decision not to disclose the information about the concluded contracts that are captured in our application. It would compromise Eskom’s position at the negotiating table,” said Etzinger.
This also applied to information on its energy-saving campaign. The company has put several energy-saving initiatives out to tender as part of its bid to avert to current power shortages that have led to scheduled electricity blackouts.
”We don’t want to reveal the negotiating targets because we will find it difficult to manoeuvre … the dynamics are quite serious,” said Etzinger. — Sapa