Parliament, Thursday, 23 April 2026 –The Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy received a briefing from the Department of Electricity and Energy (DEE) yesterday on the department’s revised strategic plan for the 2025–2030 financial years, alongside the 2026/2027 annual performance plan and budget.
Briefing the committee, the Minister of the department, Dr Kgosientsho Ramakgopa, informed the committee that the department continues to face considerable challenges. He said although the decoupling of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) into two separate departments, the Department of Electricity and Energy, and the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources in the current administration has taken place, the establishment of the new DEE is still underway.
He said that only 20% of the personnel from the previous department have been moved, a significant number of positions, particularly at the executive committee and senior management levels, remain vacant as a result. He told the committee that the department doesn’t have a Director-General and a Chief Financial Officer, but the recruitment process for both positions is underway.
The committee expressed concern over the delay in the release of the Electricity Pricing Policy (EPP) and it enquired about where it is, and when will it be presented to the committee. Members questioned how the department will reconcile cost reflectivity with the protection of vulnerable users.
In response to that question, the Acting Director-General, Mr Subesh Pillay, said cost-reflective pricing does not necessarily equate to affordable pricing. The EPP addresses this partially through cross-subsidisation mechanisms, such as inclining block tariffs or fiscal subsidies.
Mr Pillay added that the EPP acknowledges the necessity of creating protective buffers for indigent consumers. He said this raises definitional questions that include who qualifies as indigent, and how does the subsidy reach its intended recipients. He said current evidence is troubling, as only approximately 20% of Free Basic Electricity (FBE) beneficiaries receive the full 50 kilowatt-hour monthly entitlement.
The department told the committee that the document will be released after it has gone through Cabinet and there has been public participation process, and it has been presented to the portfolio committee.
The committee pressed the department on its plans to reduce the price of electricity, a goal the Minister indicated is one of his core objectives. Mr Pillay said the question is not linear as it does not have a simple answer. He said: “The reality is that energy pricing requires maturity of the energy market to get to a point where we’ll make a significant and exponential reduction in the price of energy.”
Part of the immediate intervention is to focus on Eskom’s efficiency and the primary energy costs that contribute most significantly to energy pricing. The goal is to drive the efficiency of Eskom so that the department can contain tariff increases on a single-digit basis, given the existing commitments in that regard.
The committee acknowledged the Minister’s remarks regarding the challenges of the decoupling and noted that the department appears under-funded. Members inquired how the department will achieve all its programming objectives on such a small budget and how it plans to become fully-operational in this financial year.
The department responded that it is creating the policy environment, de-risking these projects, and opening them up to the debt capital markets so that it can attract greater levels of investments in terms of how the program is executed.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY, MS ZAMA KHANYASE
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Name: Yoliswa Landu (Ms)
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E-mail: ylandu@parliament.gov.za
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