South Africa urged to firm up developmental vision for universal electricity access

A leading advocate for the provision of free basic electricity (FBE) to poor South African households has welcomed moves by government to pursue its universal access goal through a “developmental” lens but believes more still needs to be done to firm up what affordable access means and the best ways of achieving that objective. In his Budget Vote speech, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa announced that government’s revised universal access strategy would reframe electrification as a developmental and rights-based obligation rather than a legacy infrastructure backlog.