In order to help alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 national lockdown on indigent households, Eskom today launched its communication campaign aimed at raising awareness of the longstanding Free Basic Electricity (FBE) programme, which is targeted at giving limited free electricity to indigent households.
Qualifying households, in terms of the government’s policy of providing support to the unemployed, low-earning, the destitute and the elderly, are encouraged to approach their municipalities to register as indigents in order to collect their allocated free basic electricity every month.
“Customers on municipalities’ indigent household registers have the right to collect a minimum 50 kiloWatt hours (kWh) of electricity for free every month, which can also be higher, depending on the municipality,” said Monde Bala, Group Executive: Distribution. “Unfortunately a large number of indigent households don’t exercise their right, either because they are unaware of the free basic electricity, or because they have not registered with the municipality.”
Once registered with the municipality, the customer’s details are loaded on the Eskom system where they get credited with free electricity tokens.
As at end March 2020, Eskom had 900 000 registered indigent customers for free basic electricity but only 700 000 people are collecting their FBE tokens. Eskom is working with municipalities to ensure that indigent households receive the free electricity allocated by the government. “The partnership with municipalities will go a long way to helping cushion the indigent households from the full impact of COVID-19 lockdown,” said Bala.
Customers who qualify for FBE but who are not currently collecting it must approach their municipality and register to receive their free allocation.
