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The DA has lodged a formal complaint with NERSA over Tshwane’s current power outage crisis. The City collects R14-billion a year in power income, but delivers 4,600 power outages on average a month. And 70% of power failures last longer than eight hours.

Such long power outages, so regularly, may constitute a breach of the City’s electricity distribution license conditions. This is a crisis of collapsing infrastructure and an inexplicable decision by the ActionSA/ANC government in Tshwane to defund key electricity upgrade projects.

Enough is enough, as Tshwane today faces a massive power outage covering almost half the city. The DA cannot and will not accept this, because residents and businesses suffer day after day with an uncaring government. They prove more and more that they are not fit to govern this City.

In the period April 2025 to April 2026 Tshwane lost 85,000 jobs, while in the DA-led Cape Town net job gains were recorded. We believe that Tshwane’s failing electricity grid has contributed to these job losses.

Today residents of Tshwane face another power failure crisis because a storm last night knocked out the collapsing infrastructure, and at the same time there has been a major fire at the Watloo Substation too.

The collapse in the reliability of Tshwane’s electricity network is not simply the result of ageing infrastructure: it is also the result of bad political and budget decisions.

The Electricity Regulation Act applies standards for the quality of electricity supply and service, performance improvement targets and the proper operation and maintenance of distribution networks. We believe that Tshwane is not meeting these.

Instead of investing in infrastructure, Mayor Nasiphi Moya’s administration has prioritised the payment of irregular invoices of water tanker contractors and security companies. The consequence of bad political-financial decisions is now being felt across Tshwane. More proof that they are not fit to govern this City.

In June 2025, Moneyweb reported that Tshwane experienced about 4,600 power interruptions per month between January and May, even though South Africa experienced only 16 days of load-shedding during that period, compared with 83 days during the same period in 2024.

Even more alarming is that the average Tshwane power interruption lasted 22 hours and five minutes – almost a full day without electricity.

We now turn to NERSA. The DA’s position is that NERSA is responsible for monitoring compliance with electricity distribution licence conditions and enforcing those conditions where they are breached – and now NERSA must do so.

Tshwane cannot continue collecting R14-billion from electricity customers while allowing the infrastructure needed to supply those customers to deteriorate.

But there is hope for Tshwane. The DA is determined to take back the City, and a DA government will turn the electricity crisis around. We will conduct an engineering condition assessment of the electricity grid and use it to develop a properly costed and prioritised programme of upgrades within the City’s available budget. We will do this to keep the lights on.

We will put money back into the infrastructure that keeps the lights on, protects jobs and gets Tshwane working.

Issued by DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Ald Cilliers Brink