NERSA tariff comments close 21 April; Labour Court limits s 60 EEA reach to contractors

Government Notice 7366 publishes the list of over 190 municipal and private distributor electricity tariff applications received by NERSA for the 2026/27 financial year and invites written public comments by 21 April 2026. The tariff applications are available on the NERSA website. Three municipalities — City of Ekurhuleni, Mogale City, and Naledi — are excluded from this cycle because they have filed a notice of motion seeking to depart from a High Court judgment and will follow separate timelines. Final tariff decisions will be taken after consideration of stakeholder submissions and NERSA's own technical and regulatory analysis, making the comment period substantively meaningful for anyone affected by municipal electricity pricing.

An employee alleged automatically unfair dismissal under s 187(1)(f) of the LRA, claiming she was dismissed for resisting quid pro quo sexual harassment by a person engaged by the employer as an independent contractor. The employee and the contractor had previously been in a consensual relationship. The employer raised in limine that the Labour Court lacked jurisdiction because the alleged harasser was not an employee.

The court held: The court held that s 60 EEA vicarious liability does not extend to the conduct of non-employees such as independent contractors, and that the Harassment Code of Good Practice — being a guideline — cannot indirectly create new forms of statutory liability beyond what s 60 provides. However, the court accepted jurisdiction over the automatically unfair dismissal claim on the basis that the employer could be held directly liable if it made common cause with the contractor and dismissed the employee for an impermissible reason. On the merits, the claim was dismissed because the plaintiff failed to adduce even a prima facie case of sexual harassment — there were no allegations of sexual advances or quid pro quo conduct after the consensual relationship ended.

Legal impact: This judgment develops the law by drawing a clear boundary around s 60 EEA: employer vicarious liability for workplace discrimination stops at the employment relationship and does not reach independent contractors. It also settles that codes of good practice cannot expand statutory liability. At the same time, it confirms an alternative route — direct employer liability for automatically unfair dismissal where the employer acts in concert with a contractor's discriminatory motive. Practitioners advising employers who engage independent contractors in senior or influential roles must now account for this distinction when structuring harassment policies and disciplinary processes.