Elections: What the ANC, DA, EFF and MK promise on electricity as load reduction lingers

Two weeks before the 4 November Local Government elections, the ANC, DA, EFF and MK party set out their electricity plans in their manifestos.

The ANC and DA focused on improving municipal networks; meanwhile, the EFF wants electricity treated as a public good, and MK Party targets private power producers.

We will keep the lights on by reinvesting electricity revenue into electrical infrastructure, maintaining grids, enabling municipalities to buy and sell their own power, and supporting households and businesses that can feed electricity back into the system.

DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis framed electricity as part of the party’s promise to get municipalities working. It also planned to pay grid maintenance contractors based on network uptime and to publish map-based reports on blackouts.

Municipalities must be empowered to buy and sell electricity directly from private energy companies without waiting years for national government approval.

The EFF pledged to ensure that key state-owned enterprises provide cheap electricity, water, and transport for citizens and industry. EFF leader Julius Malema also touched on Free Basic Electricity (FBE), saying that Sassa recipients must automatically receive free electricity, instead of having to register with municipalities.

Pensioners must not pay for electricity; everyone who is a Sassa recipient must not pay for electricity, because when they give you social grants, it is because you are struggling, but then they take it back.

The MK Party manifesto focuses on stabilizing and expanding the grid to ensure enough capacity to power the country’s industrial future, while continuing to explore affordable and sustainable forms of electricity that prioritize the benefit of South Africans.