Please note: this article has been updated – click here for the 2021 version.
With the rapid increase in the price of electricity and water over the past few years, the question is: what does a shower or bath cost in South Africa in 2017?
Most South Africans are aware of the rapidly rising price of electricity (a 300% increase in the period 2007-2015 alone), but the price of water has also been increasing rapidly over the past few years.
For example, here are the water & sanitation tariff increases effective July 2017 for the four major metropolitan areas:
- Ethekwini 17%
- City of Johannesburg 12.2%
- City of Tshwane 10.2%
- City of Cape Town:
- 13.2% for 6 – 10.5 kl (kilolitres)
- 29.7% for 10.5 – 20 kl
- 27.2% for 20 – 35 kl
- 128.8% for 35 – 50 kl
These increases are all much higher than inflation. All these municipalities have also done away with the free water allocation of 6 000 litres (6 kilolitres), except for people registered as indigent.
Of course, there is a serious drought in Cape Town, and so the increases seen there might be more justifiable.
South Africans tend not to think twice about the cost of a shower or bath, since both electricity and water used to be very inexpensive.
Is this still true in 2017? We did some calculations and the result is an eye-opener.