Over the past three financial years, Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) residents have endured over a thousand unplanned electricity outages, totalling tens of thousands of hours without power. This untenable situation persists, even though the municipality charges the highest electricity tariffs in the Eastern Cape.
In response to this, the DA launched a petition in February calling for lower tariffs and a comprehensive turnaround strategy for the municipal electricity department.
Today, we held a protest outside the East London City Hall and personally delivered the petition, signed by over 2100 members of the public and business sector, to the BCM Speaker’s Office.
[see pictures here, here and here]
By submitting this petition, the DA continues its fight to reduce exorbitant electricity tariffs, allowing residents to save money, businesses to thrive, and supporting economic growth and job creation.
The collapse of the ANC-led municipality’s electricity department has had catastrophic consequences for Buffalo City residents and the local economy.
In response to questions posed by the DA in the Eastern Cape Legislature, the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Zolile Williams, revealed the true extent of governance failure and the financial crisis plaguing the electricity department.
The municipality experienced 1513 unplanned outages between 2022/23 and 2024/25, leaving residents without electricity for 83 412 hours.
MEC Williams also previously confirmed that the electricity infrastructure backlog for the municipality is estimated to be R565 million – making the R69.9 million annual budget for maintenance wholly insufficient to adequately address the backlog nor to build new infrastructure.
In February the municipality had to resubmit its municipal Electricity & Energy Business Turnaround Strategy (2024–2027) to National Treasury. This followed the municipal strategy submitted to National Treasury in October 2024, which was found not to be fully compliant.
I have written to National Treasury requesting an update on the municipality’s turnaround strategy. Additionally, DA councillors will escalate the matter in Council.
The DA demands a well managed Buffalo City electricity department that delivers, not one that punishes the people with inefficiencies and waste.