DOCRRA Electricity Crisis Update: NERSA Audit Begins

On Tuesday, 6 May 2025, a DOCRRA delegation met with representatives from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) as well as leadership from KwaDukuza Municipality (KDM) to kick off an audit of KDM’s compliance with their license to distribute electricity. 

The meeting took the form of a mediation to address the many concerns and requests for information that have come from DOCRRA since the outset of the crisis in December 2024. 

We are pleased to report back the following information to the community:

• The NERSA compliance audit has begun and meetings between their delegation and KDM are taking place already. Physical site inspections of municipal electricity assets are also imminent.  The audit will determine whether KDM are meeting their license obligations from both a technical and quality of service perspective. 

The recommendations made by NERSA regarding any compliance failures will need to be met with corrective actions to be completed by KDM and they may be summoned to a NERSA tribunal.  These recommendations will be made available to DOCRRA through the proper channels.

• As a condition of their license, KDM must have a dedicated ‘end user forum’ to interface with the community. Prior to the crisis, no such forum was ever formed. We are delighted it was agreed by all parties that the existing KDM Southern Grid Electrical Task Team, being led by the iLembe Chamber of Commerce, should be designated as this forum going forward.

• ED Jali, from the KDM electricity business unit, has agreed to supply several key pieces of outstanding information that were requested by DOCRRA in January 2025 via a PAIA process. This includes an asset register, maintenance logs and plans, as well as details of the vacancies within this business unit.  A commitment was made to provide this information no later than 16 May 2025 and will be monitored by NERSA.  This information will then be handed over to the task team to inform their efforts in both the short and long term. 

• The financial implications of escalating energy losses were discussed at great length. At present, energy losses are sitting at approximately 26% which is more than double the upper recommendation level of 12% set by NERSA. 

The DOCRRA delegation explained the dissatisfaction of the community with any revenue loss mitigation strategies, the lack of transparency in dealing with the issue, and the expectation that the ratepayer will continue to subsidize these losses.  Our experts also spent time unpacking some of the technical and management failures contributing to the situation, which NERSA will be investigating as part of their audit process.

• It was also agreed that KDM’s current communication methods for sharing information about outages is woefully insufficient and does not meet the standards for compliance set out in their license. DOCRRA will put forward a set of recommendations and suggestions for how to improve in this area which will be brought to KDM via the task team.  We have also offered our expertise on a voluntary basis to assist in solving this problem. 

We want to thank the entire delegation from NERSA and wish them every success as they continue with their audit.  We also wish to thank the representatives from KDM: the Speaker of Council, Cllr. Dolly Govender, EDs Rajcoomar and Jali, as well as other senior staff from the electricity business unit, for their willingness to engage in constructive dialogue and commitment to improve service delivery. 

The next sitting of the KDM Southern Grid Electrical Task Team will take place later this month and we will provide another update on the progress of their work as soon as it becomes available. 

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