Tujoromajo Kasuto
City of Windhoek Spokesperson, Harold Akwenye, has confirmed that the city has increased electricity tariff by two percent effective October saying the increment was approved last week by the Government.
Akwenye notes that the increment is subsequent to NamPower’s bulk tariff increase earlier in the year and subsequently the city is only following suit as they buy electricity from NamPower as a consumer and they too have to increase their tariff to enable them to still buy from the distributor.
“NamPower increased their tariff for almost the past three months and we have been paying at that rate, thus this time around we are increasing with two percent and it was approved by Government last week,” he explains.
Dispute the two percent increment, Akwenye maintains that the City is still one of the electricity distributors with the lowest tariff rates across the country. The Electricity Control Board (ECB) this April after due consideration, and in accordance with the tariff review process, resolved to increase the average bulk tariff with 2.92% from the previous approved tariff of N$ 1.6500 per kilo watt-hour to N$ 1.6982 per kilo watt-hour for 2021/2022.
The ECB had stated that the approved increase would follow a two-year period of no bulk tariff increases. The approved tariff was applicable to NamPower bulk customers, Regional Electricity Distributors (REDs), local authorities, regional councils and mines.
NamPower had initially submitted a tariff application for an effective bulk tariff (inclusive of generation and transmission) increase of 5.8%, an increase from an average N$ 1.6698 per kilowatt-hour to N$ 1.7673 per kilowatt-hour for the financial period 2021/2022.
Last year, the ECB had also rejected the City’s two percent tariff increment.
