NELSON MANDELA BAY — For vulnerable families living on limited incomes, access to free basic municipal services is often the only buffer against extreme financial distress. However, recent adjustments to Nelson Mandela Bay’s Assistance to the Poor (ATTP) programme have introduced severe new hurdles for the city’s most marginalized residents, sparking a heated political debate over the cost of living and municipal subsidies.
The ATTP programme is designed to provide qualifying indigent households with vital relief on essential services, including water, sanitation, refuse removal, and electricity. While all offered services have seen some level of reduction, the community impact has been most deeply felt through the slashing of the free electricity allocation, which was recently cut from 75 to 50 kilowatts (units) per month.
For families already stretching every rand to afford food and basic necessities, the loss of 25 free units represents a massive blow to their monthly budgets.
Community Spokespersons Highlight the Human Toll
Behind the policy changes are multi-generational families struggling to keep the lights on. An elderly resident in the community paints a stark picture of the reality on the ground. She is currently raising eight grandchildren and great-grandchildren in a single home after the passing of most of her daughters.
In the resident’s household of 11 people, only two individuals are employed. To bridge the gap left by the reduced municipal subsidy, she purchases about R100 worth of prepaid electricity whenever her budget allows, relying heavily on the remaining free ATTP allocation to stretch the household’s finances through the month.
The economic pressure is widespread and not unique to her family. Another local resident sharing his family’s experience, noted that he lost his formal employment years ago. With casual and small jobs becoming increasingly difficult to find, the financial burden of the household has fallen entirely on his wife. For residents, the 25-unit reduction is not just a policy shift; it is an immediate, unnecessary expense that drains funds meant for transport, schooling, and groceries.
Political Backlash Over “Unlawful” Tariff Hikes
The reduction in basic service relief has also ignited a fierce political fight. Spokespersons for the Democratic Alliance (DA) argue that the municipality’s indigent households are being unfairly squeezed by a combination of vanishing relief and skyrocketing power costs.
According to the DA, the financial strain is compounded by the municipality’s removal of the “step tariff” for electricity. Previously, this tariff structure offered a more gradual sliding scale for power costs. Now, families who exceed the new 50-unit free allocation are forced to pay for additional electricity out-of-pocket, facing a tariff structure that the DA notes has increased by a “whopping 61%.”
Opposition spokespersons have strongly condemned the pricing model, arguing that it is “totally unlawful to have unreasonable tariff increases like that” applied to the city’s poorest residents.
Municipality Points to National Treasury Directives
In response to the growing backlash, municipal spokespersons and councilors have defended the cuts, placing the responsibility squarely on national fiscal mandates. The municipality maintains that the subsidy reduction was not a local preference, but rather the result of a formal, non-negotiable directive from the National Treasury.
A municipal councilor explained that the local government initially fought against the mandate. “It started off by a formal letter that we received from National Treasury, which was read out in our budget and treasury standing committee,” the councilor stated. “As councilors, because we are a government that feels for our people, we do not want to reduce the amount of subsidized electricity to our people.”
The councilor emphasized that the municipality “resisted indeed at first,” but noted that local resistance could only last so long. Because the municipality relies on funding allocations from the national government, they were ultimately forced to comply when the National Treasury took a “very strong stance” on municipal spending and indigent subsidies.
For the households caught in the crossfire of national directives and local budget constraints, the political explanations offer little comfort. As the cost of living continues to outpace wages in Nelson Mandela Bay, vulnerable residents are left to navigate a new financial reality where every single unit of electricity counts.