Link between electricity costs and food availability highlighted

The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group has emphasised the connection between rising electricity costs and the availability of food in households.

This follows a report from Statistics South Africa indicating that Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) has slowed for the first time in three years.

In June, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled that the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) must base municipal tariff applications on cost of supply studies. Despite the CPI slowdown, the housing utility index increased by 2.6% between June and July.

Programme Coordinator at the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, Mervyn Abrahams, stressed the importance of municipalities conducting cost of supply studies.

“Municipalities have to undertake studies around the levels of poverty, levels of income, and affordability within their municipality. This is critical for assessing what is actually affordable in terms of tariff increases. At what point does a tariff increase mean that a household has to disconnect itself from the electricity grid because they can no longer afford to pay for that electricity.”

Abrahams pointed to the cost of meat remaining high and making it a luxury for many households.

“Particularly red meat has been for a number of years now since the end of COVID-19 a luxury for most South African households. Most of the people we work with no longer buy red meat. If they do buy it’s generally the insides of the cows or totters or things like that. And even in those areas, we have seen an increase in price because the demand has shifted from your ordinary red meat into things like liver and those types of red meats,” adds Abrahams.

VIDEO | Households struggling with high costs: