KwaDukuza took an important step toward collaborative local governance last week with the launch of its electricity end-user forum, one of only a handful in the country.

The new body brings together authorities, civil society and business stakeholders committed to improving the quality and stability of local electricity supply, one of the municipality’s most persistent challenges.

Forum members include the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), the KwaDukuza municipality (KDM), the Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers Association (Docrra), the iLembe Chamber of Commerce and the KwaDukuza Organised Residents Alliance. At Docrra’s request, Nersa convened and chaired the inaugural meeting, where members adopted the forum’s terms of reference and set the agenda for its first sitting in February next year.

This is not simply another administrative layer or talk shop. The forum is a recognised advisory structure established under the Electricity Regulations Act No. 4 of 2006 and overseen by Nersa. It is empowered to engage KDM on all aspects of electricity provision and financing and participation is a mandatory licence requirement for the municipality. Crucially, it establishes a formal communication channel between officials, business and civil society, with the authority to request documents, interrogate information and escalate matters to Nersa in cases of deadlock or breaches. In short, it carries real weight.

Business and civil society representatives on the forum are drawn from strong technical and managerial backgrounds, reflecting the complexity of the electricity challenges facing the region.
The forum’s creation stems from the severe instability experienced in December 2024 and January 2025, when residents and holidaymakers endured unprecedented electrical failures. In response, two task teams, one led by the iLembe Chamber with civil society representatives and another representing major residential estates, worked alongside KDM’s electrical business unit to address the immediate crisis. Their effective collaboration reinforced Docrra’s belief in establishing a permanent, statutory body to address long-term systemic issues without undermining the ongoing work of the task teams.

The forum’s first priority will be to review Nersa’s 2025 audit of KDM’s electrical business unit, an investigation prompted by Docrra that revealed serious licence breaches in maintenance, planning and revenue protection.

We should not be naïve: our electricity challenges are deep-rooted and complex, the result of a long-standing legacy that will not be resolved overnight.

But the constructive spirit of last week’s meeting offers hope for a new era of co-governance – a principle central to Docrra’s philosophy and urgently needed across all municipal departments.

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