BROKEN PROMISES

This briefing by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) examines the failure of the South African government to fulfill its 1998 commitment to provide affordable electricity to low-income households, small businesses, and farmers. It highlights a systemic failure in the implementation of the Free Basic Electricity (FBE) policy, where billions of rands intended for poor households are not reaching the intended beneficiaries due to municipal mismanagement.

• The South African government failed to realize the primary goal of its 1998 Energy Policy Report, which promised that "magae a batho ba ba sa itsholelang, ba dikgwebopotlana, balemirui ba ba botlana le ditirelo tsa setšhaba ba tlamelwe ka motlakase o o sa jeng madi a mantsi."
• Low-income households in South Africa face a disproportionate financial burden for energy, spending up to 17% of their income on electricity, which is higher than the percentage spent by wealthier households.
• The government has not provided a clear definition or a price-capping policy for what constitutes "affordable electricity," leaving the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy without a standard to ensure accessibility as tariffs rise.
• The Free Basic Electricity (FBE) policy, introduced in 2003 to provide 50 kWh of free electricity per month (valued at less than R100), has been poorly implemented, leaving millions of eligible households to pay for electricity out of pocket.
• There is a massive discrepancy between the funding provided by the national budget and the actual delivery of free electricity by municipalities. In 2019, the national budget funded free basic services for 9.8 million households, but only 2 million households actually received the free basic electricity.
• Approximately 5.4 million low-income households in South Africa were eligible for and entitled to free electricity in 2019 but did not receive it, representing a loss of approximately 6 billion rands.

APA

Ledger, T. (2021). BROKEN PROMISES. Public Affairs Research Institute. https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBSetswanaNew.pdf

Chicago

Ledger, Tracy. BROKEN PROMISES. Public Affairs Research Institute, 2021. https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBSetswanaNew.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ledger |first1=Tracy |title=BROKEN PROMISES |publisher=Public Affairs Research Institute |date=2021 |url=https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBSetswanaNew.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ledger2021broken, author = {Ledger, Tracy}, title = {{BROKEN PROMISES}}, institution = {Public Affairs Research Institute}, year = {2021}, url = {https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBSetswanaNew.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }