Nicholas Woode-Smith | Electricity prices should be based on free market principles | City Press

  • 📰 City_Press
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 37 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 18%
  • Publisher: 72%

Business News News

Business Business Latest News,Business Business Headlines

Nicholas Woode-Smith | Electricity prices should be based on free market principles

as Escom, the parastatal was discouraged from charging for a profit when selling electricity. This seemed fine much of the 20century. Cheap coal and apartheid-enforced cheap labour kept prices low. But even with the government subsidising unsustainably low electricity prices, it should have been clear that Eskom couldn’t keep this up forever. But it tried.

While it continued to decrease electricity prices and expand electrification to more and more people, it couldn’t afford to build more power plants. Undercharging led to Eskom being unable to build new generating capacity. Political interference only exacerbated the problems by introducing increasingly corrupt elements and disincentivising efficiency.Eskom’s fundamental problem is that it is a state-owned monopoly. It does not have a competitor to force it to embrace sound behaviour.

Perhaps, this 38% price increase is prudent. Low prices caused a lot of Eskom’s problems in the past. But we have no real way of knowing if this is a correct course of action because Eskom has no competitor to hold it accountable.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

BS!

Cleaning the house and eliminating meaning 'Retrenching staff'😳😳so Eskom does have money to pay years of service to the overstaff

I have been seeing good results about her everywhere and a lot of people keep saying to reach out to her. I eventually did and it turns out profitable. If you aren't following EliDonovan01 you should be. I have added massively to my holdings.

I agree with this. The Eskom board must be ruthless in this many. Also Eskom needs to procure equipment from suppliers directly and not through a third party. This can be said for many government institutions.

We need more media coverage on the over-staffing issue. It is not acceptable for consumers to keep paying high prices to fund redundant staff. If TelkomZA could save the company by using the retrenchment process, there should be no reason why Eskom_SA cannot do the same.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 7. in BUSİNESS

Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines