GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
27 August 2026
A study on free basic service provision commissioned by the Western Cape Department of Local Government glibly claims that the province is broadly compliant with national guidelines, with Cape Town the most indigent-friendly municipality of the lot.
Those claims are not tested in the study, and don’t stand up to scrutiny.
According to the authors of the study, Cape Town provides sixty kilowatt-hours of free electricity to indigent households per month. But the report says nothing about this apparent generosity being conditional, and that the conditions exclude many of the very people who need free basic services most.
How much electricity you get free depends on how much your household uses. But how can the City tell how much anyone uses when single electricity meters service the crowded multi-generational family homes and backyard dwellings in which hundreds of thousands of the poorest Capetonians live?
The average electricity consumption in Cape Town for a 4-member household is 450 to 600 units. But electricity meters can’t discriminate between 4-member and 12-member households, or 12-member households with another two families living in the backyard.
This creates the obvious anomaly that many of the poorest households, by income, consume seemingly large amounts of electricity – and therefore pay top dollar. This is not a reality that Cape Town’s Lifeline policy even considers!
What the City hard-sells in its PR is that households on the Lifeline tariff receives 60 free units of electricity, with the small print proviso that its average use must be below 250 kilowatt-hours a month.
What the City doesn’t say is that households using between 250-450 units a month receives just 25 free units, which is half the national legislated minimum.
Or that above 450 units – which is the case in many of the poorest households – disqualifies consumers from Lifeline altogether.
The Lifeline policy is fundamentally at odds with the City’s own indigent registration policy. While being registered as an indigent exempts you from the property valuation test, and being charged unaffordable rates and water costs, it does not exempt you from paying the full price for electricity if too many people share your meter.
Registration as indigent is limited to property owners. Backyard dwellers cannot apply, nor can tenants, mothers-in-law or spinster aunts. The Province’s study notes that backyard dwellers are “often excluded” but doesn’t bother explaining why or provide any remedies.
The DA repeatedly claims to be providing the most generous free basic services in the country. But it doesn’t tell us how many Cape Town households receive 25 units rather than the full 60. Or how many households have been removed from Lifeline altogether?
The truth of this tariff is it’s not worthy of the name, lifeline.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za