Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa insists the provision of free services and water to poor families across South Africa is an emergency intervention to protect the poor households.
IOL reported earlier that Ramokgopa has revealed that 10 million households qualify for free basic electricity, but only 2 million currently have access to it due to several delays.
Ramokgopa added that government is working hard to ensure that poor households have access to free basic electricity.
In an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Ramokgopa said the concept of free basic services, including electricity and water, was designed for households with no one in employment.
“What makes a household to qualify for this free basic electricity, including water and other things? It is because their earning capacity as total household is lower than a particular threshold, I think it is about R2,400 or so, I might be wrong.
“What that means is that people are not in employment, people are not in a position to fend for themselves. When I say it is a structural problem, I mean you don’t resolve this crisis by just extending free basic services. You resolve this problem by ensuring that the South African economy grows,” said the former mayor of the City of Tshwane.
He added load shedding has been at the heart of the impediments to the growth bedevilling the South African economy.
However, the minister said the provision of free basic services was not a solution by an intervention.
“This is an intervention. It is not a permanent solution. So the conceptualisation and the idea of free basic electricity and water is to ensure that you broaden the flow of the social wage, you provide relief to the poor as you allow the economy to grow.
“Hopefully, people will graduate from those conditions and you remove them from the indigent register and they become citizens and consumers who are able to pay for their own consumption. Where we are at, it is important that we provide some degree of relief as we work to resolve load shedding, address issues of the inefficiencies on the logistics side, and allow the South African economy to grow.”
IOL