Swapo Party MP Tobie Aupindi has criticised NamPower's proposed 17.44% electricity tariff increase and called for a more transparent, realistic, and consumer-friendly approach. 

He made the remarks during the Committee Stage debate on the Ministry of Industrialisation, Mines and Energy's budget in the National Assembly.

Dr. Aupindi argued that the tariff hike is largely driven by a re-evaluation of NamPower's assets, which has significantly increased both depreciation charges and returns on asset costs that are ultimately passed on to consumers.

"If asset value goes up, then depreciation and return on assets go up. Now, if the asset value goes up, then depreciation goes up; customers will need to pay more so that Nampower can be paid for that increase in return on assets and depreciation. Secondly, NamPower keeps understating its projected generation from Ruacana." 

He further accused the utility of consistently understating power generation figures from the Ruacana hydropower plant, Namibia's cheapest energy source. He alleged that this tactic drives up electricity prices and boosts NamPower's revenue unfairly.

"This is industrial dishonesty. As a government, we need to insist that the projected income from Ruacana in their tariff application should be the same or at least within 20% of the previous year's actuals."

On the utility's push to place defaulting municipalities on prepaid systems, Dr. Aupindi warned that this would hurt the economy by forcing municipalities to shift all consumers, including large industries, to prepaid, disrupting cash flow and operations.

"Because if you put a municipality onto prepaid, the municipality will have to put all its customers onto prepaid to protect itself. Imagine if Namibian breweries could be put on prepaid, and the impact of that decision on their cash flow. City of Windhoek was asked to move onto prepaid, and it refused because of the cash flow implications and the impact on industry as well. NamPower must simply enforce collection by either disconnecting defaulting customers or better stakeholder engagement. If you imagine how many pensioners' accounts municipalities write off every year, NamPower never contributes to these write-offs in any way."