MBABANE – As some emaSwati wholly blame EEC for energy hikes, the truth is that they will pay more to correct mistakes committed in South Africa.
The Eswatini Electricity Company, popularly known as EEC, has been labelled ‘facata’ (scammers), the Times SUNDAY can mention that ESERA’s counterpart, Nersa, is to blame and has apologised for the error stemming from its miscalculation during Eskom’s multi-year price determination. In January 2025, the regulator underestimated the utility’s costs, resulting in an estimated revenue shortfall of over E100 billion.
To offset the gap, the two parties agreed to recover E54 billion from residential consumers without a public consultation. The consumers include emaSwati, whose 80 per cent of power requirements are sourced from South Africa.
On February 8, 2026, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) announced an 8.76 per cent electricity price hike, effective in April this year. It will be followed by an 8.83 per cent increase in April 2027.
Two days down the line, on Tuesday (February 10, 2026), the Eswatini Energy Regulatory Authority (ESERA) also announced an expected tariff increase. It fixed the increase at 13.61 per cent for the 2026/2027 financial year.
With South Africa’s energy regulator allowing Eskom to raise the tariffs, solely to recover E54.7 billion over three years after a series of pricing errors and a failed attempt to settle the matter privately, Eswatini’s total revenue recovery is E3.63 billion (E3 638 866 064.00).
Justifying the approval of EEC’s tariff increase, ESERA stated that its decision was based, among other things, on the escalation of Eskom tariffs that were effective in September 2026, resulting in an increase of 8.4 per cent in the 2025/2026 financial year.
ESERA said its decision was also based on Nersa’s additional 3.4 per cent for 2026/2027 on top of the 5.36 per cent which was initially approved for 2026/2027, making the overall adjustment of 8.76 per cent.
As a result, ESERA deemed it appropriate that the public enterprise, 100 per cent owned by government, recover E3.638 billion from emaSwati through the following avenues –
- Facility charges – E84 117 774.00.
- Energy charges – E2 846 632 212.00.
- Demand charges – E525 671 077.00.
- Access charges – E182 445 001.00.
A facility charge in electricity, as regulated by ESERA is a fixed monthly fee designed to cover the costs of providing electricity service that are independent of the actual amount of energy consumed.
Demand charges are fixed, capacity-based fees (measured in E/kVA) applied to commercial/industrial users, rather than volumetric energy usage. They reflect the highest power demand placed on the network and are set to increase by 17 per cent for the 2026/27 financial year to cover infrastructure costs.
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