In the wake of the controversy surrounding the new electricity surcharge of R200 for prepaid customers in Johannesburg, the GOOD Party has slammed parties and organisations that accused it of voting for the tariff.

GOOD stressed its opposition to the surcharge and said it was not present during the Council budget vote as it had a vacancy following the firing of its former councillor Lloyd Phillips.

It hit back against ActionSA, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse and the Sowetan newspaper for “spreading false information”.

“[They] clearly did not do their homework and confirm the information independently, but chose to spread rumours based on incorrect social media posts. The Sowetan has since agreed to correct their article. The unnecessary financial burden placed on residents goes against everything GOOD stands for and has been fighting against since our formation in 2019. GOOD has continuously fought against high tariffs and unnecessary charges across the country and condemned the municipalities that seek to unlawfully profit from hiking tariffs above what NERSA prescribes,” GOOD said.

In a statement on Thursday, City of Johannesburg Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda said the new surcharge was a necessary intervention to create fairness and equality in the municipality’s tariff regime.

“Post-paid customers have been paying the surcharge and only pre-paid customers were excluded. What the introduction of the surcharge now seeks to do, is to end the unfair subsidisation of prepaid customers by post-paid customers,” he said.

He said the necessary consultations with residents were undertaken before the approval of the new surcharge and acknowledged the opposition to it, but defended the move by saying the City needed to maintain the electricity system to meet the needs of a growing population.

It also condemned “any attempt to sabotage this critical intervention” and likened it to an attempt to deliberately collapse the City’s infrastructure.