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As South Africans keep their cars for longer and new technologies become increasingly common, the affordability of vehicle ownership is being shaped by more than the purchase price, says the South African Motor Body Repairers' Association (Sambra).

Increasingly, the question consumers should be asking is not whether they can afford to buy a vehicle, but rather whether they can afford to repair it.

According to Sambra, vehicle repairability is fast becoming one of the automotive industry's biggest affordability challenges, affecting petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) alike.

"Much of the public debate has focused on whether EVs are more expensive to repair," says Sambra national director Juan Hanekom.

"The reality is that repairability has become a broader issue across the entire automotive industry.

"Modern vehicles are more sophisticated than ever before, and that complexity is changing the economics of collision repair."

Today's vehicles incorporate advanced driver assistance systems, cameras, radar sensors, LED lighting, new lightweight materials and highly integrated components.

While these technologies improve safety and performance, they can also increase repair costs.

"What appears to be relatively minor collision damage can sometimes require replacement of complete assemblies rather than individual components," explains Hanekom.

"That has significant implications for repair costs, insurance claims and ultimately vehicle affordability."

EVs do, however, add a new dimension to the debate, notes Hanekom, even if they still represent a relatively small proportion of South Africa's national vehicle fleet.

"The battery is often seen as the biggest cost concern, but it's important to understand that batteries do not automatically require replacement after every accident.

"Following a collision, the battery must first be safely isolated, inspected and assessed using manufacturer-approved procedures.

"Only where damage is confirmed, or the battery's integrity cannot be verified, does replacement become necessary.

"Because of the battery's value, however, it can significantly influence whether a vehicle remains economically repairable."

Hanekom says this highlights the distinction between technical repairability and economic repairability.

"A vehicle may be completely repairable from a technical perspective. The repairer may have the skills, equipment and approved repair methods to restore it safely.

"Insurers, however, also have to consider the vehicle's market value, total repair costs, potential supplementary damage, repair duration and expected salvage value.

"Those factors ultimately determine whether repairing the vehicle remains economically viable."

As vehicle technology continues to evolve, Hanekom believes repairability deserves far greater attention from manufacturers, insurers and policymakers.

"Consumers increasingly consider fuel economy, safety ratings and purchase price when choosing a vehicle.

"Repairability should become part of that conversation because it directly influences the total cost of ownership over the life of the vehicle."

Sambra believes improving repairability requires collaboration across the automotive value chain.

While repairers continue investing in specialist training, high-voltage safety systems (for EVs) and advanced diagnostic capabilities, manufacturers and importers also have an important role to play by supporting the local repair ecosystem, says Hanekom.

This includes designing vehicles with repairability in mind; providing repairers with model-specific technical information and diagnostic access; developing clear battery assessment and repair procedures for EVs; making individual components available, where safe and practical, instead of requiring full assembly replacement; ensuring adequate local availability of collision repair parts; and supporting the repair industry from the moment new-vehicle technologies are introduced into the South African market.

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Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana reports that letters have been written to national departments and provinces warning them that their September equitable-share transfers could be withheld should they fail to settle outstanding payments to municipalities.

The Minister put national and provincial government on notice during a briefing held to announce that the National Treasury will begin releasing the local government equitable share transfers not yet transferred on July 31.

This, despite the fact that not all of the 69 municipalities affected by the decision to withhold the transfers had complied with the requirements set for the release of the funds.

The move to withhold the July transfers – the first of three distributed yearly to local governments, with the other payments made in December and March – was announced in early July and was taken in terms of Section 216(2) of the Constitution, read with Section 38 of the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003.

It followed the failure of these 69 municipalities to respond to letters sent to 99 municipal mayors on June 22 requesting evidence that they were moving to adhere to the requirements of the Municipal Finance Management Act.

It specifically sought evidence demonstrating that municipalities were not passing unfunded budgets, were paying bulk suppliers, including water boards and Eskom, were tackling ongoing unauthorised, irregular, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and were implementing consequence management.

On July 3, letters were emailed to 69 mayors indicating that the Minister had decided to temporarily withhold the transfer of the July funding.

During a subsequent Parliamentary briefing, at which the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) raised concerns about the legality of the move, the question of equitable-share transfers to national departments and provinces that owed municipalities was raised by several participants.

The FFC noted that, while the 69 affected municipalities owed R97.4-billion to creditors, they were also owed R217.9-billion, including by other organs of State, which owed them R11.6-billion.

During a July 28 briefing, Godongwana indicated that the National Treasury was preparing to invoke Section 216(2) of the Constitution against those national departments and provinces that were failing to meet their obligation to pay municipalities within 30 days.

He reported that letters had been circulated to national and provincial government indicating that their September equitable share transfers could be withheld unless the debt was settled.

The reason it had not taken place earlier was attributed to the fact that the financial year for municipalities was different from the April to end-March financial year under which national and provincial government operated.

"Once we finalise all of these performance indicators we want from municipalities, we are going to go to everybody else.

"The Public Finance Management Act requires that we pay service providers within 30 days [and] we are working on that programme," he said, indicating that an age analysis of some departmental invoices was already under way.

CONDITIONAL RELEASE

Meanwhile, he reported that 20 municipalities had already received their full July equitable shares, having met the criteria.

The other 49 municipalities would receive their outstanding equitable shares on Friday, July 31, 2026, of which 21 municipalities had already received partial allocations.

A total of 28 municipalities would receive their allocations despite not fully complying to date.

Godongwana justified the decision to release all the funds on grounds that this would "avoid having an adverse short- to medium-term effect on the delivery of basic municipal services".

"The equitable share is an important source of funding for basic services, particularly services provided to poor households.

"National Treasury must therefore balance its constitutional responsibility to enforce financial management...

Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses the ongoing reform of the electricity sector, where momentum seems to be slowing down, as well as developments in the broader energy transition and the potential for using electricity from solar rooftops to lower municipal costs.

As South Africa's water crisis reaches a breaking point, President Cyril Ramaphosa has published the National Water Action Plan (NWAP), outlining strategic interventions to reverse the significant deterioration in water supply and quality over the short, medium and long term.

The release of the plan followed a meeting of the National Water Crisis Committee (WATERCOM) in Pretoria on Thursday.

WATERCOM, chaired by Ramaphosa and comprising a range of government departments and public agencies, as well as the South African Local Government Association (Salga), was established following the 2026 State of the Nation Address in February in response to the increasingly severe water supply interruptions in several parts of the country.

The plan, developed by WATERCOM, sets out a focused, programmatic series of actions to ensure a reliable supply of quality water to all South Africans, aiming to address the root causes of the water supply challenges in many municipalities.

Informed by extensive consultation with stakeholders across all three spheres of government – national, provincial and local – and associations such as Salga, the NWAP outlines a strategy to increase investment in infrastructure, including through private sector investment; implement legal and regulatory reforms to improve municipal service delivery; and address corruption and criminality in the water sector.

With priority interventions designed to establish new foundations for sustainable water service delivery, dedicated teams have been mandated to drive implementation, accelerate results and catalyse long-term reform.

WATERCOM will meet regularly to oversee the implementation of the plan and to hold the responsible departments and agencies accountable for delivery.

"By acting boldly and decisively to improve the performance of Eskom and reform our energy system, we were able to end loadshedding and achieve a secure and reliable energy supply. Now, we are applying the same approach to the water crisis that has been unfolding in many parts of our country. The NWAP outlines a clear, practical and focused approach to ensure water security for all South Africans, no matter where they live," said Ramaphosa.

"Too many municipalities, communities and businesses can no longer rely on safe, reliable water services, threatening public health, economic activity and social stability. The scale of the challenge now demands urgent national action and a fundamental shift in how water services are restored and managed."

FIVE INTERVENTIONS Based on five areas of intervention, each with dedicated teams and clear priorities, the plan highlighted the need to act on two fronts, namely working with municipalities to resolve the immediate crises and changing the system to deliver water services for lasting results.

According to the plan, some actions will yield results within months, while others are longer-term reforms that will take time to fully deliver.

"While these challenges cannot be resolved overnight, continuing with outdated approaches is no longer an option."

The five areas of intervention include addressing challenges in municipal water and sanitation delivery, through which most South Africans receive water; expediting reforms to address the systemic causes of the water crisis; increasing investment in infrastructure, including through private sector investment; exploring legal and regulatory mechanisms to improve municipal service delivery; and addressing corruption and criminality in the water sector.

KEY PARTNERS WATERCOM is working with municipalities to mobilise resources, expertise and new partnerships to stabilise failing systems, recover critical services and expand access across the country.

This will ensure a coordinated approach to the institutional and financing reforms necessary to achieve water security, including ring-fencing water revenues to ensure adequate maintenance of water assets and increasing investment in bulk water and distribution infrastructure....

Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busisiwe Mavuso has warned of "reform drift" after the latest BLSA Reform Tracker showed that quarter-on-quarter momentum had turned negative for the first time since it started tracking South Africa's reform agenda.

Developed and managed by research consultancy Krutham for BLSA, the index monitors 247 reform deliverables across economic, criminal justice and governance categories.

Covering the period from April to June, the tracker's overall reform completion index fell to 71.5 from 71.7 in the previous quarter, while remaining 26% above the March 2024 baseline.

"This quarter is the first time we've seen more reforms lose ground than gain it," Mavuso said, highlighting a slowing in the pace of reform in the crucial areas of electricity and freight logistics in particular.

Besides delays to Eskom's unbundling, the subject of a heated debate in recent weeks between Mavuso and Eskom chairperson Mteto Nyati, the tracker highlighted several other areas where reform progress had "paused".

While highlighting Eskom's improved operational performance, which has put a halt to loadshedding and created surpluses of more than 5 GW, the index in the electricity-reform area eased from 69.1 to 67.5, representing a 2.2% quarter-on-quarter fall.

Issues of concern highlighted by Krutham included the emergence of a R2-billion backlog in curtailment compensation payments by Eskom to independent power producers (IPPs), leaving some IPPs facing revenue shortfalls of around 9%.

"Virtual wheeling protocols recorded one of the quarter's steepest declines, down 18.75 points (100 to 81.25), after the finalisation of trading rules missed its April deadline, keeping private electricity traders on the sidelines.

"Municipal debt to Eskom breached R114-billion, with distribution agency agreements offered as a stop-gap rather than a structural fix, and transmission roll-out missed its 2025/26 target (270.8 km against a target of 423 km)," the report released with the index states.

It adds that the South African Wholesale Electricity Market and the independent Transmission System Operator (TSO) both face "tight, at-risk timelines heading into Q3".

Mavuso has been particularly vocal in reinforcing organised business's stance that the TSO should own the grid assets, as such ownership would remove any possibility that the entity running the network could favour itself or a related party, such as Eskom Green, over competitors.

Nyati, meanwhile, has questioned why BLSA and Business Unity South Africa were actively advocating for political intervention to transfer the transmission assets to the TSO, having insisted on board independence during the period of State capture.

BLSA has consistently highlighted that the unbundling of the TSO, with the grid assets, is government policy and that separating it from electricity generation would help provide non-discriminatory access to the network and inspire investor confidence.

Meanwhile, the tracker also showed that freight logistics momentum had eased slightly, falling 0.5% to 68.8, amid bankability concerns, the fact that the National Rail Bill was not tabled during the quarter, and concern over rolling-stock constraints.

However, the release of the rolling stock leasing company, or LeaseCo, request for proposals on June 22 was described as a "positive step", as was the July 3 release of Volume 4 of the Network Statement – the latter having been excluded from the quarter's scores as it fell outside of the period.

The report also highlighted the fact that Transnet's Rail Infrastructure Manager had signed rail access agreements with all 11 newly qualified private train operating companies, and that the Durban Container Terminal Pier 2 concession had reached financial close.

Nevertheless, BLSA remained concerned that reforms in energy and freight logistics were starting to hit obstacles.

"The biggest risk facing South Africa today is probably no longer the absence of reforms. I...

By adopting a cooperative rather than an oppositional stance towards rooftop solar, Gauteng municipalities in particular have an immediate opportunity to reduce the cost of their bulk purchases of electricity, a new report shows.

This cost saving could be amplified materially through the introduction of incentives to scale up installations and by leveraging leased battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Published by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), the report shows that Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane accounted for over half of the more than 2 260 MW of rooftop solar installed by December 2024.

This installed base represents a potential source of cost reduction that could be accessed relatively quickly and easily, as most residential installations produce 'excess' electricity on average over a 12-month period, which is curtailed because it has nowhere to go.

This excess electricity, the report states, is potentially available to municipalities at a rate almost half that which is currently paid to Eskom through the Megaflex tariff.

However, PARI views the real opportunity as being one whereby municipalities encourage rooftop solar owners to increase the size of these installations, and sell their excess electricity to the municipality at a discount to the Megaflex tariff. This cheap electricity could then be stored in leased BESS systems for dispatch during the morning and evening peaks.

"Under a scenario of a 20% increase in installation size by commercial and industrial sites and a 50% increase in installation size on residential sites, the combined annual savings for Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane would be almost R2.5-billion per annum – an amount almost equal to the current combined annual capex budgets of those three municipalities," PARI lead author Tracy Ledger and joint researcher Clyde Mallinson, of Sizana Consulting, calculate.

The potential value of this infrastructure would be forfeited, however, should municipalities continue implementing policies that are hostile to the owners of rooftop systems.

"The current approach of forcing installation owners onto more expensive tariff structures – to incur additional system compliance costs and to carry the full cost of new meters – against a backdrop of rapidly increasing electricity tariffs and the availability of substitute energy sources such as gas, is almost certain to drive much higher rates of grid defection," the report warns.

Grid defection is described as the "worst outcome", as municipalities lose both customers and access to cheap power-producing infrastructure that has been paid for and is being maintained by third-parties.

"Municipalities need to adopt a more cooperative approach towards rooftop solar owners, rather than the current oppositional approach common in many municipalities which is based on the fundamentally flawed assumption that rooftop solar is the main reason for current financial problems."

Using Johannesburg as a case study, the authors calculate electricity losses, in the form of technical and illegal connections, to be almost five times higher than the 772 000 MWh of yearly self-generation; a portion of which is most likely consumed during City Power's ongoing unplanned outages, which remain high despite waning loadshedding.

"This is the real reason why City Power is in serious financial trouble," the report asserts, while noting that households have also responded to surging electricity tariffs by installing gas geysers and cookers and by self-limiting consumption.

"Municipalities need to create a situation where rooftop solar owners are happy to enter into a sales agreement with the municipality and to increase the size of their installations.

"This will not happen under the current municipal view of these entities as the opposition."

The authors, thus, recommend that municipalities shift their approach to one which recognises the potential to diversify their bulk purchases, which account for more than 85% of tot...

Transnet group CEO Michelle Phillips says the State-owned rail, ports and pipeline logistics group is putting measures in place to ensure that it no longer over-pays for goods and services.

Speaking at the SAPICS 2026 conference held in Cape Town this week, she said recent reforms within the entity included rolling out a catalogue of market-pricing, so that "if a part is R1.50, and you put in R1 500, the system will not allow you to buy that".

Addressing the professional body for supply chain and operations management in Africa, she emphasised that the days of collusion and over-charging within Transnet were over.

"Transnet cannot afford to pay anything other than what the market pays.

"If a private company is paying R1.50, I will not be paying more than R1.50," warned Phillips.

"It cannot be that because we are government, people think there is this big, black hole of money and that they can charge anything they want.

"We cannot pay 30%, 50%, in some cases a 1 000%, 3 000% more than what the market pays. It will come to an end.

"In the last week we have blacklisted seven companies because of that behaviour. We have dismissed a number of employees because of that behaviour. And there are more coming who will be blacklisted, and there will be more employees who will be dismissed.

"I will not do business if it is not clean business," noted Phillips.

She said the additional costs associated with collusion and over-charging inevitably filtered down to ordinary South Africans in the prices they paid for goods.

It was also vital for Transnet to grow its competitiveness, especially given the entry of private participants into the logistics market.

Phillips was equally unhappy with middlemen.

"Some middlemen feel that we have to buy from them, although they are buying from [manufacturers] overseas. We are a transport and logistics company – I don't need people to import on my behalf.

"How does that make sense? You import on my behalf and then you charge me an arm and a leg?"

"We can do that. What we need to do is get local manufacturing started in the country. The real challenge is to get these businesses started."

Capex Programme and Rail Target Phillips said Transnet had a capital expenditure (capex) programme of R129.1-billion for the next five years, with R116-billion to be allocated to initiatives aimed at maintaining reliability and protecting existing volumes.

"That is the size of the pie when it comes to capex. You can see the majority of that is sustaining capital. We would have liked that to be expansionary, but we've got too much to fix and that is where the money will go."

Phillips also noted that Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) was currently 3.16-million tons behind its target of moving 180-million tons of goods this financial year.

She remained confident, however, that TFR would see an overall improvement this year compared with the 167.9-million tons of goods moved in the 2025/26 financial year.

R5bn Security Spend Phillips also highlighted that Transnet had been forced to spend almost R5-billion a year on private security to "protect the network" from criminals stealing and vandalising cables and the rail track, for example.

She noted that Transnet in the last two years had also seen a sharp increase in instances of sabotage, rather than pure criminal behaviour, linked to its efforts to reform the State asset.

The National Treasury's temporary withholding of the transfer of the July equitable share funds to 69 municipalities came under intense scrutiny in Parliament on Friday, where questions were raised about the lawfulness of the intervention.

On July 7, the National Treasury announced the withholding decision, which it said had been taken in terms of section 216(2) of the Constitution, read with Section 38 of the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003.

During a joint meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, the Standing Committee on Finance, the Standing Committee on Appropriations, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and the Standing Committee on the Auditor-General, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana defended the intervention.

Arguing that it was a corrective rather than punitive measure, Godongwana said the decision to invoke Section 216(2) had been taken as a "last resort" to halt the financial deterioration in municipalities, and only after other supportive actions had been taken.

The intervention, he reiterated, was designed to address the passing of unfunded budgets, the non-payment of bulk suppliers, including water boards and Eskom, ongoing unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and a failure of the councils to implement consequence management.

Initially, letters were sent to 99 municipal mayors on June 22, following which 30 municipalities responded by the June 30 deadline with evidence demonstrating they had adhered to the requirements.

On July 3, 69 letters were emailed to the mayors of the remaining municipalities indicating that the Minister had decided to temporarily withhold the transfer of the July funding. Equitable share funds are transferred to local governments in three separate tranches in July, December and March.

National Treasury director-general Duncan Pieterse told lawmakers that all 69 municipalities had responded to their letters and that these responses had been assessed to determine if municipalities met the criteria to receive the funds.

Pieterse said 27 municipalities received their equitable share transfers on July 16. Ten of these municipalities had received their full transfers amounting to R1.7-billion, while 17 received a portion totalling R2.9-billion to strictly pay the relevant creditors.

The financially distressed City of Johannesburg formed part of the group of 17 receiving partial relief and the funds would be transferred only once the National Treasury had received proof of the payment of creditors.

A further 22 municipalities were due to receive their equitable share in the week starting on July 20.

Nevertheless, the legality of the National Treasury's intervention, as well as the process followed, was criticised, including by the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, who suggested that a different approach could have been used.

Hlabisa called for a harmonisation of the process to be followed before invoking Section 216(2) and also urged the National Treasury to act as assertively against provinces and national departments that owed municipalities billions in outstanding payments.

STRONG CRITICISM

However, the intervention was most heavily criticised by Financial and Fiscal Commission chairperson Dr Patience Nombeko Mbava who argued that while conditional grants could be withheld by the executive, the unconditional local government equitable share could be stopped only by Parliament.

She highlighted textual contradictions in the National Treasury's announcement, as Section 216(2) speaks only of the stopping of funds to municipalities, with the withholding of funds referred to only in the Division of Revenue Act, which was not invoked.

Mbava also questioned the efficacy of the action, which she said could have serious service delivery consequences for residents and businesses in the 69 affected municipalities, 15 of which had no cash buffers in place...

Engineering News & Mining Weekly online writer Lumkile Nkomfe discusses the significance of ACTOM's expansion of its Pretoria West factory with a new lithium-ion battery assembly facility and increased high-voltage equipment manufacturing capacity.

Electromechanical equipment manufactuer ACTOM has expanded its manufacturing footprint at its Pretoria West industrial campus, in Gauteng, with the launch of the ACTOM Static Energy battery assembly facility and the unveiling of additional manufacturing capacity for its High-Voltage Equipment (HVE) division.

Speaking at the launch event on July 15, ACTOM CEO Mervyn Naidoo said this development marked a significant milestone in the company's efforts to strengthen local manufacturing capability and position itself as a supplier of integrated energy infrastructure solutions.

He explained that the Pretoria West facility, previously operated by electrical equipment supplier SGB-SMIT Power Matla, had been transformed into an industrial campus by integrating the manufacture of large power transformers, high-voltage equipment and lithium-ion battery energy storage systems.

Naidoo also highlighted that this investment could revive manufacturing capability, reinstate jobs and establish a platform for long-term growth, while strengthening South Africa's grid infrastructure and expanding local industrial capacity.

Additionally, he said the investment forms part of ACTOM's broader continental strategy of manufacturing "for Africa, by Africa, in Africa".

He noted that while the continent hosts abundant mineral resources required for infrastructure development, it still continues to lag in beneficiation and intra-African trade.

ACTOM intends to establish regional industrial hubs across the continent, supported by local manufacturing and regional supply chains to improve long-term energy security and economic resilience, and at its Pretoria West campus, ACTOM has increased its large power transformer manufacturing capacity by about four times since acquiring the facility.

The company has also doubled its circuit breaker manufacturing capacity by relocating production from Germiston to Pretoria and expanded its instrument transformer manufacturing capability.

Moreover, Naidoo noted that ACTOM has acquired a controlling stake in lithium-ion battery manufacturer JUEL Batteries, relocating the business to Pretoria West and rebranding it as ACTOM Static Energy. Since the acquisition, production capacity has increased by about ten times through a continued investment in new manufacturing equipment.

Speaking to Engineering News & Mining Weekly on the sidelines of the event, Naidoo said that, as alternative sources of energy gain prominence within South Africa's energy market, there will be an increased need for energy storage capacity.

"Our long-term intent has always been to enter the battery manufacturing space. We acquired a controlling equity stake in a business and effectively ramped up capacity by moving it into the [Pretoria West] facility and this enables us to build lithium-ion batteries, [and] beyond that, [also] energy storage systems that incorporate batteries, inverters, as well as associated high, low and medium-voltage equipment into a system, allowing for an integrated solution, enabling utility-scale storage," Naidoo highlighted.

Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) acting deputy director-general Dr Tebogo Mokube described the investment made by ACTOM as an example of localisation in practice.

He said localisation and industrialisation remained central to government's economic strategy despite earlier criticism that local procurement would increase costs, adding that investments such as ACTOM's generate wider economic benefits through employment creation, industrial revitalisation and the expansion of domestic manufacturing capability.

Mokube also noted that Cabinet had approved South Africa's Critical Minerals Strategy, with the dtic assuming responsibility for promoting the local beneficiation of minerals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel and vanadium, particularly for battery manufacturing.

He added that battery manufacturing would play an increasingly important role as South Africa expanded its renewable energy ...