Broken Promises

This research paper by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) examines the failure of the South African government to fulfill its 1998 White Paper on Energy promise to provide affordable electricity to poor households, small businesses, and small-scale farmers. It highlights a significant gap between national budget allocations for free basic electricity and the actual delivery of these services by municipalities.

• The South African government's 1998 White Paper on Energy promised to improve the availability of affordable electricity for poor households, small businesses, small-scale farmers, and community services, but this promise remains unfulfilled after 20 years.
• Poor households in South Africa spend a disproportionately high percentage of their income on electricity—approximately 17%—which is higher than the expenditure of wealthier families and reduces the funds available for other essentials like food.
• The failure to provide affordable electricity forces low-income families to use dangerous and polluting energy sources, such as paraffin, coal, and wood, which increases the risk of house fires and causes child mortality due to poor indoor air quality.
• There is a critical failure in the implementation of the Free Basic Electricity (FBE) policy introduced in 2003, which provides 50 kWh of free electricity per month (valued at under R100). In 2019, while the national budget funded free services for 9.8 million households, only 2 million households actually received free electricity through their municipalities.
• The document estimates that over 5.4 million poor households in South Africa should have received free electricity but did not, resulting in an estimated loss of 6 billion rand in 2019 alone that should have assisted these families.

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} }