{"id":92246,"date":"2025-10-31T16:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:58:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:58:03","slug":"mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access","title":{"rendered":"Mashatile Urges Municipalities to Improve Power Access"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Deputy President Paul Mashatile says if municipalities did a better job at ensuring communities are all connected to the electricity grid, it would eliminate criminal networks capitalising on poor people through illegal connections.<\/p>\n<p>Answering questions in the National Assembly on Thursday, Mashatile said by the end of July, debt owed to Eskom had reached R102 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Eskom estimates this figure could reach R300 billion by 2030 if there\u2019s no urgent intervention.<\/p>\n<p>The deputy president said that although there\u2019s resistance to prepaid meters, it would allow for better debt management and for consumers to only buy what they can afford.<\/p>\n<p>Mashatile said if municipalities continued to supply electricity in the hope that consumers will pay, it would not be able to come out of the debt spiral.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People must access as they can afford. Then we make it affordable for the indigent, in line with the policy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mashatile said while it\u2019s not disputed that electricity in South Africa is expensive, those behind illegal connections were, in fact, stealing from communities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we don\u2019t connect them, the izinyokanyoka comes. They connect them, they charge them, but that money won\u2019t go to Eskom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mashatile said municipalities needed a proper indigent policy because these were known to have been abused in the past.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Deputy President Paul Mashatile says if municipalities did a better job at ensuring communities are all connected to the electricity grid, it would eliminate criminal networks capitalising on poor people through illegal connections. Answering questions in the National Assembly on Thursday, Mashatile said by the end of July, debt owed to Eskom [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":92245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-92246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mashatile Urges Municipalities to Improve Power Access - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Deputy President Paul Mashatile says if municipalities did a better job at ensuring communities are all connected to the ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mashatile Urges Municipalities to Improve Power Access\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Deputy President Paul Mashatile says if municipalities did a better job at ensuring communities are all connected to the ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-31T16:15:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-31T16:58:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/10\/sm_1761917261.637945.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mashatile Urges Municipalities to Improve Power Access\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-31T16:15:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-31T16:58:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access\"},\"wordCount\":232,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/10\/sm_1761917261.637945.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/mashatile-urges-municipalities-to-improve-power-access\",\"name\":\"Mashatile Urges Municipalities to Improve Power Access - 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