Broken Promises

The report argues that South Africa's promise of affordable electricity for the poor remains unfulfilled 20 years after the 1998 White Paper on Energy. It highlights that poor households spend a disproportionate 17% of their income on electricity and that the Free Basic Electricity (FBE) program, which provides 50 kWh per month, is severely under-implemented. The document claims that in 2019, while national funding supported 9.8 million households for free services, only 2 million actually received free electricity, leaving over 5.4 million eligible poor households without the benefit and resulting in an estimated R6 billion in diverted funds.

• The South African government has failed to implement the goals of the 1998 White Paper on Energy because it never established a clear definition or legal limit for what constitutes "affordable electricity," leaving the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy without a concrete standard to enforce.
• Low-income households in South Africa face a higher financial burden for energy than wealthier households, spending 17% of their income on electricity, which reduces their ability to afford other essentials like food.
• The Free Basic Electricity (FBE) program, introduced in 2003 to provide 50 kWh of free electricity per month (valued at less than R100), is not reaching the intended beneficiaries due to municipal failures in registration and administration.
• There is a massive discrepancy between national funding and actual service delivery: in 2019, national budget allocations supported 9.8 million households for free services, but only 2 million households received free electricity. Even accounting for 2.5 million households without electricity connections, over 5.4 million poor households were denied free electricity, representing approximately R6 billion in missing funds for 2019.

APA

Ledger, T. (2021). Broken Promises. Public Affairs Research Institute. https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBZuluNew.pdf

Chicago

Ledger, Tracy. Broken Promises. Public Affairs Research Institute, 2021. https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBZuluNew.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ledger |first1=Tracy |title=Broken Promises |publisher=Public Affairs Research Institute |date=April 2021 |url=https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBZuluNew.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}, month = apr, url = {https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CBZuluNew.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }