Nersa -v- Cabinet, round 2?

THE National Energy Regulator (Nersa) seems set on another collision course with Government -- this time over electricity prices. Having only just covered up the cracks that opened during the iPayipi affair, when Cabinet bluntly overrode Nersa's encouragement of a private pipeline proposal in favour of Transnet's, Nersa has now been rapped over the knuckles by Minister Alec Erwin over its insistence that it alone has the right to determine Eskom's electricity prices. Eskom wants to bump up prices to cover the costs of the massive new power generation the country desperately needs. Erwin says Eskom is right, regardless of what Nersa may determine as a fair increase. All goes to show that economics trumps pseudo-Marxist reasoning, every time. Not bad Alec, you old communist! Still a member of the party, are you?