The proportion of households without access to electricity has declined across the country except in Gauteng and the Western Cape. This is according to Statistics South Africa’s latest General Household Survey 2010, published in May 2011.

Between 2002 and 2010, the proportion of households in South Africa without electricity dropped by 22%. Some 23% of households had no access to electricity in 2002, but that proportion had dropped to 18% by 2010.

Limpopo showed the largest decrease in the proportion of households without access to electricity, at 55%, followed by the Free State and the Eastern Cape with declines of 48% and 36% respectively. The proportion of households without access to electricity dropped from 27% to 12% in Limpopo, from 15% to 8% in the FreeState, and from 44% to 28% in the Eastern Cape.

Gauteng and the Western Cape were the only two provinces where the proportion of households without access to electricity went up over the period, by 37% and 11% respectively. Households without access to electricity went up from 13% to 18% in Gauteng, and from 12% to 13% in the Western Cape.

- Kerwin Lebone