ECB urged to review southern surcharges

TOWN councils in the South are not happy with the way the Electricity Control Board has calculated the surcharges the Southern Regional Electricity Distributor (Sored) will pay them when it starts operating in June.

At a meeting at Keetmanshoop last week, the town clerks of Keetmanshoop and Rehoboth called on the ECB to review the calculations. They said the surcharges would be equivalent to what they were receiving from the Southern Electricity Company (SELCo) and Reho Electricity, to which they had outsourced electricity provision in their towns.They claimed that other local authorities such as Mariental would receive the same amount that they currently earned from electricity sales.NamPower’s Senior Manager of Development, JC Van Wyk, said the power utility was also not happy with the surcharges.He said the payment of surcharges would financially drain Sored.Van Wyk appealed to the ECB to arrange a workshop on the issue of surcharges, since neither the local authorities nor NamPower was comfortable with it.They said the surcharges would be equivalent to what they were receiving from the Southern Electricity Company (SELCo) and Reho Electricity, to which they had outsourced electricity provision in their towns.They claimed that other local authorities such as Mariental would receive the same amount that they currently earned from electricity sales.NamPower’s Senior Manager of Development, JC Van Wyk, said the power utility was also not happy with the surcharges.He said the payment of surcharges would financially drain Sored.Van Wyk appealed to the ECB to arrange a workshop on the issue of surcharges, since neither the local authorities nor NamPower was comfortable with it.