Merafong’s energy poverty crisis deepens

In Merafong local municipality on Gauteng’s West Rand, households are connected to the national grid but cannot afford electricity, revealing how prepaid power, municipal debt and gaps in oversight are pushing residents into energy poverty.

Power lines run overhead, electricity meters are fixed to homes and official records list households as electrified. Yet inside many homes Oxpeckers recently observed, the lights were off. For a growing number of residents, the question is no longer...