Citiq Prepaid Explains Recovery Rates
Many people are often confused about the price of electricity units and they believe that the Electricity Price is the same throughout South Africa. This is not always the case. Did you know, depending on your location and provider’s pricing model, electricity costs can vary by up to almost R1 a unit?
Power is provided to you by Eskom or the relevant municipality – with each provider setting their own tariffs, within NERSA (National Energy Regulator) guidelines, according to the local realities. This results in a wide range of unit costs – so a prepaid unit of electricity could cost as little as R1,24 or over R2,85 depending on the exact location of the property. Some providers work on ‘volume based’ pricing (Incline Block Tariff) which means the cost increases the more you purchase within a calendar month. While most of the money will go towards purchasing electricity there are potentially a number of additional costs. Prepaid utilities from any provider attract additional costs due to the nature of service. Understanding how prepaid tariffs are calculated is sometimes unclear and we’d like to make things easier, so we’ve put together this infographic to explain how recovery rates are calculated:
The base rate for each electricity unit is set by the provider which, depending on your geographical location, is either Eskom or the municipality. This rate can change according to the exact location, even within provinces and cities, and how many units have been purchased previously in the same calendar month. Some prepaid providers work on ‘volume-based’ pricing with means that the units get more expensive the more you buy each calendar month.
Prepaid recovery rates are VAT inclusive of 15% of the total amount paid. There are also a few minimal fees built into prepaid recovery rates such as a) Citiq Prepaid’s fee for delivering the prepaid utility service to property owners, managers and tenants, which is a service fee of 8.45% and b) a service fee charged by certain payment channel vendors, which can range from 0 – 3.5%. Purchasing tokens through direct channels such as EFT and Citiq Prepaid’s website via OZOW carry no channel fee. For other ways to save on electricity costs, read our 7 ways to save on electricity costs with Citiq Prepaid blog post.
There is sometimes an additional building recovery charge to cover the electricity required to power shared areas such as building lifts, corridor lighting and other necessary shared building operations. This is done at the property owner’s discretion keeping the Rental Housing Act’s guidelines in mind.
If you have any questions about recovery rates, we encourage you to speak to your landlord. For any further information or to discuss any other aspect of our service you are welcome to contact Citiq Prepaid’s call centre on 087 55 111 55.
