South Africa: Elections 2026 - Midlands Municipality Claws Back Millions in Electricity Revenue
The meters are already in the ground. uMngeni Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has installed close to 1,900 smart meters, and the numbers coming back are hard to ignore.
The move is part of a broader push to cut electricity losses that have been bleeding the municipality's revenue for years. Smart meters track consumption in real time, making it far harder for power to disappear between the grid and the bill.
With local government elections on the horizon in 2026, municipalities across South Africa are under pressure to show voters they can manage money well. Recovering electricity revenue is one of the clearest ways to do that, and uMngeni is putting that argument in hardware.
Whether the rollout reaches the scale needed to make a lasting difference is the question residents and ratepayers will be watching closely between now and polling day.
Originally published by AllAfrica · info@groundup.org.za (GroundUp).