The ANC coalition in Tshwane’s budget choices has prioritised spending on water tankers and security contracts while neglecting infrastructure, leading to the collapse of the city’s electricity supply.
This accusation was made by DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink during a media briefing on Wednesday. Brink said residents and businesses in some areas of Tshwane have been dealing with the frustrations of power outages from November until now.
“Power has been on and off and was worse in December for these residents,” he said.
We are preparing a formal complaint to Nersa in terms of section 32 of the Electricity Regulation Act for failure to fulfil licence conditions.
— Cilliers Brink, DA Tshwane mayoral candidate
Rhe DA is preparing a formal complaint to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) and it would be supported by affidavits from affected residents and businesses where power had been mostly off since December 26, Brink said.
“We are preparing a formal complaint to Nersa in terms of section 32 of the Electricity Regulation Act for failure to fulfil licence conditions. The DA has been raising concerns about the state of the grid, but we have been forced to escalate the matter to regulators to fix the infrastructure.”
DA Tshwane spokesperson for finance Jacqui Uys said the city was not investigating the misspending of the funds. “The call is on the committee to ensure that funds are spent properly and to ensure that there is compliance in the process of spending funds,” she said.
Brink said when tabling the adjustment budget in February 2025, the ANC coalition increased expenditure on water tankers and security companies instead of basic infrastructure.
He warned that proposed departmental budget cuts of between 5% and 10%, which amount to R2bn, could weaken frontline services, including electricity maintenance and repairs. Such cuts, if implemented, would deepen the crisis rather than resolve it, he said.
“We believe that regulatory intervention was now necessary to stabilise the electricity outages and prevent further deterioration. We argue that residents and businesses could no longer be expected to endure prolonged outages while critical infrastructure continued to be neglected.”
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