'Hello darkness, my old friend'

POWER PRICE: HUGE NUMBERS ALREADY COULD NOT AFFORD ELECTRICITY BEFORE APRIL HIKE

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The results of a new survey of the socioeconomic challenges facing consumers and how they are dealing with them, paints a grim picture of a cold, dark winter ahead for most households due to soaring electricity prices.

The latest Debt Rescue survey, that also investigates how consumers deal with the socioeconomic challenges, found that 79% of South African consumers now rely on prepaid electricity.

So they only load what they can afford, often having to live in the dark before month-end.

It is even more disturbing that the survey results reveal that 86% of the respondents could already no longer afford the cost of electricity and had cut back on essentials such as groceries or transport to keep the power on.

This was the case even ahead of the April electricity tariff hike.

Nearly 80% of the respondents said the latest electricity increase will have a significant effect on their monthly budgets.