GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
23 July 2026
The rosy picture that the DA-led City of Cape Town is selling about the future provision of electricity in the City does not stand up to scrutiny.
Three distortions immediately spring off the page of the City’s press statement about service delivery issued this week.
1. The headline claim of “R6 Billion investment in electricity infrastructure” is loose with the truth. The City’s budget refers to “close to R6 billion”, while the actual verified Energy directorate capital figure is R4.714 billion over three years.
2. The R1 billion streetlight investment claim is crafted to give the impression of large-scale expansion of public lighting. In fact, 70% of this money is to pay for repairs and maintenance, with just R261m for new streetlights.
3. The claimed commitment to shielding Capetonians from Eskom price increases by implementing tariff increases lower than those permitted by Nersa, excludes the critical context that its practise of charging above-Nersa rates over the past two years has been illegal. For two years it overcharges residents; now it claims some kind of morality in stopping unlawful over-charging practises.
The three claims reduce the statement from the realm of fact to one of boastful electioneering.
After spending much of the past month visiting informal settlements and working-class neighbourhoods – from Khayelitsha to Elsies, and from Mfuleni to Tafelsig – I can vouch that from the perspective of the Cape Flats there is nothing to celebrate.
Squeezing the downtrodden
1. Cape Town’s free basic electricity policy provides 60 kWh free per month – but only to households consuming below 250 kWh per month. That sounds reasonable, till you consider the impacts of Cape Town’s housing crisis on over-crowding. When three generations of a family are forced to live in a two-bedroom shack, with a backyard shack sharing the electricity meter, pushing electricity use above the DA limits, the system doesn’t regard it as poverty. It’s a system designed for nuclear families in freestanding houses. It was not designed for the Cape Town the DA actually governs.
2. Using the prepaid metering system as a debt collection weapon denies residents the right to contest alleged debts. It also allows the City to recover a property owner’s arrears from a tenant or occupier. In District Six, about 100 Phase 3 restitution beneficiaries are forced through their prepaid purchases to repay arrears owed by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology – which no longer owns the land.
3. In every informal settlement I have visited residents plead for the same thing: A wire to their home, and a legal electricity supply. When legal connections aren’t delivered, residents connect illegally. The City doesn’t prioritise new connections but blames residents for illegal connections and their impact on public lighting.
These three realities describe a City that regards electricity provision as a cash cow and collection tool – not service provision.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za