With utility provider Eskom and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) presently involved in relentless efforts to ascertain what can be deemed as an "appropriate" increase in electricity tariffs over the next five-year period, Solidarity has asserted that Nersa's final decision on Eskom's MYPD3 application will be a decision which South Africa will not be able to refuse.

Pointing to the fact that Eskom is - in its MYPD3 application - seeking a 16 percent hike in electricity prices each year for the next five years, Solidarity said that the fundamental problem behind electricity price rise in the country is the monopolistic arrangement in which the authority to generate as well as transmit electricity rests with one single entity.

According to Solidarity, since Eskom, in actual fact, has a legislated monopoly on electricity generation and on the transmission network, the decision taken by Eskom and Nersa will inevitably be binding for the South African electricity consumers because they do not have any choice - unless they can generate power on their own - other than buying electricity from Eskom.

Noting that the South African market's ability to find the "correct" electricity price is totally stifled, Solidarity maintains that, given the present structure of the country's electricity market, it is simply not possible to know whether the electricity prices, which Eskom and Nersa eventually decide upon, are "correct" or not.