THE eThekwini Municipality reported a staggering R1.9 billion loss in electricity for the 2024/2025 financial year, as outlined in the latest oversight report.
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THE eThekwini Municipality reported a staggering R1.9 billion loss in electricity for the 2024/2025 financial year, as outlined in the latest oversight report.
The municipality is implementing various measures to address distribution losses and improve service delivery amidst ongoing challenges.
It lost 1.11 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, amounting to R1.9 billion in the 2024/2025 financial year
The figures were contained in the Municipality’s Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) oversight report to council in March 2026 on material debt impairments, losses, and write-offs. The committee stated that the losses equate to 11.23% of the purchases from Eskom.
In the 2023/2024 financial year, the municipality lost 1.12 billion kilowatt hours, resulting in a R1.7bn loss.
The committee noted that the losses are attributed to distribution losses, primarily influenced by the efficiency of the installed equipment and illegal connections. The committee stated that mitigation measures are being implemented, including inspecting meters for illegal bypasses and installing protective enclosures, along with business and customer audits.
The committee emphasised that the Energy Management Directorate must replace aged and non-functional meters, roll out new prepaid meters, and consider the electrification of informal settlements.
During a discussion on the eThekwini Matters Podcast, the municipality said they were turning the tide in their electricity provision, despite ongoing challenges. Energy Management Directorate’s deputy director, Leshan Moodliar, explained the impact of implementing the Metro Trading Reforms and shared insights into the transformation agenda and its digital strategy to improve customer services.
Moodliar said the municipality spent 70% of the budget on buying electricity from Eskom and that the price of electricity in the country has increased five times more than inflation over the decades.
The National Treasury reform strategy, approved by the municipal council in late 2024 and accelerated through the 2025/2026 financial period, focuses on infrastructure development, financial sustainability, strengthened operational support and a line of accountability.
Moodliar said he sees many changes in the electricity supply sector globally and as a result the municipality had to change how it operates.
“The energy directorate is currently seeing a drastic drop in sales. Ten years ago we were growing at 4% a year. Today, there is zero growth or negative growth, so we are seeing a decline in our sales, our revenue and our ability to generate surpluses. When you combine all of that together, we are unable to meet our financial requirements to carry out service delivery projects,” he said.
“What then happens is that we invest less into these projects and slowly but surely we will be deteriorating in terms of those projects and service delivery. The trading services reforms come at quite a good time in terms of the municipality trying to implement some type of change to turn around this negative trajectory or trend that we see across the value chain for the unit,” he added.
Moodliar said they are working closely with treasury to meet required deadlines by June 2026.
“We were quite impressed with what they put on the table. The reforms aligned with this turnaround strategy include a performance-based grant system, for which we must set targets and comply. Failure to meet these targets could result in us losing some of the grants,” he said.
He said there were several categories in the performance indicators, including the supply chain management becoming more transparent.
Regarding repair efficiency, he said, the municipality must ensure it spends enough money on repairs and maintenance to keep the networks in shape. He said losses have to be kept down to atleast a minimum of 12%.
Concerning customer service, Moodliar said the municipal contact centre received between 55,000 and 65,000 queries monthly covering a wide range. Moodliar said that digitising customer service introduced four new platforms of communication with the municipality and reduced calls to the contact centre, improving response times to faults.
“We are working on improving taking information from the field to the customer. We can give customers milestone feedback. I advise residents to be more energy efficient,” he said.