Electricity fees from February 1 in Oman: Royal Decree

Muscat: Consumers will pay renewed fees for electricity from February 1, based on a sliding scale of consumption, officials have announced.
Muscat Municipality will levy the fee based upon the amount of electricity consumed per month, according to Muscat Municipality Decree No (1/2018), which was issued by Mohsin bin Mohammed Al Sheikh, chairman of Muscat Municipality, last week.
In a statement, officials revealed: “If the electricity bill is below OMR25, the consumer pays 0.5 per cent fees to the municipality. Between OMR25 to OMR50 the consumer pays one per cent fees and if the electricity bill reached over OMR50 then the two per cent fees will be added and paid to the Municipality.”
The decree states the rates will be applied to all "consumers" from February 1.
Other than fees on electricity consumption, several other areas were also included in the Royal Decree.
The municipality renewed fees levied to international hotels and restaurants, along with tourist and entertainment centres.
Operators of entertainment centres, halls, games, cinemas, theatres, concerts, and museums will pay 10 per cent fees on original ticket prices.
Hotels, hotel apartments, furnished apartments, youth hostels, camp grounds, recreation parks, car parks, trailers, restaurants, international cafes and restaurants, which are rated as first class by the municipality, will pay five per cent fees on the prices charged.
“For residential homes where bills are around OMR25, the overall prices shouldn’t be very high. If this is for some development work, then it is a good move,” Mehran Ahmed, an Omani resident, said.
T Bhaskaran, convener of the Malayalam Wing of the Indian Social Club, said: “It’s not really the common man who will bear the brunt of this, but big businesses, because they will be consuming a lot of electricity and will need to pay more for this. This will then increase the cost of other goods and foodstuffs in supermarkets, and this, in turn, will hit the consumer."