Hiking the electricity tariffs will be unfair and a burden on taxpayers because municipalities owe Eskom more that R3.2 billion, AfriForum said on Tuesday.

"Loyal South Africans should again cough up because Eskom is unable to recover their debt," AfriForum's manager of community structures Tiaan Esterhuizen said in a statement.

"It's important for the public to realise that the increase in outstanding debt of municipalities can lead to further problems if Eskom decided to cut the bulk electricity supplied to towns."

Taxpayers already paid their electricity bills every month and the "problem" was attributed to the failure of municipalities to pay Eskom.

"If municipalities do not pay their accounts, Eskom will have no choice but to cut the power supply," said Esterhuizen.

Esterhuizen said the licences of municipalities, which enabled them to supply electricity, should be revoked if they failed to pay their accounts.

Electricity management should be privatised to eliminate the impact of inept municipalities, which would solve problems with electricity supply, said Esterhuizen.

"Privatising electricity supply will also streamline debt collection and an accurate invoicing system," he said.

Last month, Co-operative Governance Minister Pravin Gordhan said municipalities around the country owed Eskom R10.8bn at the end of June.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question he said the biggest debtor was City Power, of the City of Johannesburg, which owed R1.075bn.