Overcharged for electricity? Hereâs how Nelson Mandela Bay plans to pay you back

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Three weeks after the Gqeberha High Court ordered Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to scrap its unpopular flat electricity rate, the process of reversing the tariff has moved a step forward, with the metro now setting out how it plans to reimburse residents who were overcharged.

The reversal follows an urgent court application by the DA, which challenged the municipalityâs decision to replace the previous inclining block tariff (IBT) with a flat rate from 1 July. Under the IBT, households paid a lower rate for their first 300kWh each month, with higher rates applying as consumption increased.

The municipality did not oppose the application.

Prepaid electricity customers are set to receive additional electricity units, while residents who receive conventional municipal bills will have the money owed to them credited to their accounts.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has now invited electricity customers and other interested and affected parties from Nelson Mandela Bay to comment on the metroâs application by 2 September 2026.

The notice and the metroâs application were published on Nersaâs website on 13 August 2026.

Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya confirmed on Thursday, 21 August 2026 that the application had been submitted.

â[The] Municipality remains committed to implementing the High Court Order in a manner that is lawful, transparent, accurate and administratively fair. The Municipality also remains committed to providing affected residents with clear and timely information as the regulatory and implementation processes progress,â Soyaya said.

The application, publicly available on Nersaâs website, sets out how the municipality intends to compensate residents who paid more under the flat tariff introduced on 1 July.

For prepaid customers, this will not be in the form of a cash refund. Instead, the municipality plans to retrospectively recalculate affected electricity purchases and give customers additional units equivalent to the amount they were overcharged.

Prepaid customers to get extra units

According to the municipalityâs implementation plan, every affected prepaid transaction from 1 July will be recalculated.

The municipality will compare the number of units a customer actually received under the flat tariff with the number of units they would have received under the reinstated IBT.

The difference will then be restored to the customer as additional electricity units.

Customers should therefore not have to submit individual claims for the adjustment.

The municipality says it will identify the affected transactions, calculate the difference at individual customer level and load the outstanding units.

âFor prepaid customers, any favourable variance will be restored as additional electricity units or through another controlled system mechanism approved for implementation,â the municipalityâs application says.

The process will apply retrospectively to purchases made from 1 July, when the flat tariff came into effect.

What about conventional municipal accounts?

Customers who receive conventional municipal electricity bills will be compensated differently.

The municipality says it will identify affected domestic accounts from 1 July and retrospectively calculate what each customer should have paid under the reinstated IBT.

The amount actually billed will then be compared with the corrected amount.

Where a customer was overcharged, the difference will be processed as a monetary credit on their municipal account.

Unlike prepaid customers, who will receive additional electricity units, conventionally billed customers will therefore see the amount owed to them reflected as a credit on their municipal account.

When will customers get their credits?

The municipalityâs implementation plan proposes configuring the revised tariff from 1 September 2026, although this is subject to Nersa approving the consequential tariff amendments.

Once approved, the municipality says it will load the revised IBT rates onto its vending and billing systems.

It will then identify affected prepaid transactions and conventional billing accounts, recalculate the amounts and determine the variance owed to each customer.

The process will also include a reconciliation to ensure the customer-level adjustments correspond with the municipalityâs financial records.

The municipality says all credits must be reflected within the timeframe prescribed by the high court order, which is no later than 30 days after implementation of the courtâs directives.

What tariff will replace the flat rate?

The municipality is proposing to restore the four-block IBT structure that applied to qualifying domestic prepaid customers in 2025/26, with the approved 10.95% annual increase applied to the previous rates.

Under the IBT structure, the first electricity units consumed during the month are charged at a lower rate, with progressively higher rates applying as consumption increases.

This is the tariff structure the municipality abandoned when it introduced the flat electricity rate at the beginning of the 2026/27 financial year.

The municipality says the proposed restored rates are based on the Nersa-approved 2026/27 rates schedule, with the 10.95% approved increase applied to the applicable 2025/26 IBT rates.

For non-ATTP domestic prepaid customers, the proposed structure includes a basic monthly charge of R91.54, including VAT.

The first 250kWh would then be charged at R3.8533/kWh, the next 250kWh at R4.5806/kWh and consumption above 500kWh at R5.0654/kWh.

The removal of the IBT hit low-income households hardest. Gelvandale resident Marion Claassen, who relies on a disability grant, previously told Daily Maverick that after the flat tariff came in, a prepaid purchase that used to last her the usual amount only bought a quarter of the units she expected.

âBlock tariffs an unbearable financial burdenâ

Nelson Mandela Bay metro DA mayoral candidate Retief Odendaal said the process was a âmassiveâ victory for consumers, since it would have a significant impact on their disposable income.

âBut hereâs the thing. It is very, very sad that it took a court order to force the municipality to do whatâs right.

âThey promised the broader public a 10.9% increase. The public expected a 10.9% increase. And if it wasnât for the DA bringing this application, they would have been stuck with 29% increases up to a 61% increase,â Odendaal said.

According to Odendaal the whole situation leading up to this point indicates that the current administration that you have is not to be trusted.

âAnd we are currently also sitting with a situation whereby, notwithstanding the fact that our dams are overflowing, they are still charging people in Nelson Mandela Bay units of tariffs for water.

âSo you are sitting here with a municipality that instead of identifying the wastage and trying to make sure that they balance the books by governing efficiently, theyâre passing on the maladministration and the wastage to the people of Nelson Mandela Bay. And that is totally unacceptable,â Odendaal added

ACDP councillor and the partyâs mayoral candidate for the metro, Lance Grootboom, welcomed Nersaâs tariff roll-back notice, stating he had consistently opposed the excessive, punitive electricity increases.

âStripping away protective block tariffs placed an unbearable financial burden on struggling households, pensioners and low-income residents who are already battling severe cost-of-living pressures.

âBasic municipal services must never become a source of undue hardship for the most vulnerable in our communities,â said Grootboom.

With Nersa now leading the formal processing of the court directive, the ACDP demands that:

Nersa must process this consequential amendment without unnecessary delays once public submissions close; and

The metro must ensure that billing and prepaid vending systems automatically credit all affected consumers.

Grootboom urged all affected and interested parties to make submissions to the provided email address before the set date.

Nersa has the final say

The municipalityâs application does not mean the previous tariff structure has already been restored.

The high court order requires the municipality to obtain Nersaâs approval for the consequential tariff amendments before implementing the revised structure.

Nersa has invited affected customers and other interested parties to comment before it makes a final decision.

Written submissions can be sent to municcomments@nersa.org.za by 2 September 2026.

The municipalityâs full application and supporting documents are available to the public on the Nersa website.

Soyaya said the municipality is committed to ensuring that the adjustment process is undertaken systematically and accurately, with the calculation based on verified municipal records.

âThis approach is intended to ensure that qualifying customers are treated consistently and that the adjustment reflects the actual difference between the tariff applied and the tariff that should have applied.

âThe Municipality will communicate with affected customers through SMS and email, where customer contact information is available, and will provide broader updates through its official communication and social media platforms once the approved tariff has been received from Nersa and the necessary implementation processes have been completed,â he said. DM

Reporting originally appeared via Daily Maverick. Read the full source for additional context.