National Solar Water Heater Programme is ‘a total failure’ after squandering R325m, DMRE admits

15 Mar 2025

Members of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy uniformly condemned the waste at the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s National Solar Water Heater Programme and urgently demanded site visits. Meanwhile, no one has been held accountable for the fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

‘As a team, the project is a total failure,” said Thabo Kekana, Deputy Director-General at the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) for programmes and projects.

Kekana made the admission following near-universal criticism from members of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy during a presentation on the National Solar Water Heater Programme on Friday morning, 14 March.

The programme, designed to install 5 million solar water heaters in households by 2030, has instead become a symbol of mismanagement and waste. Over six years, solar geysers meant for low-income households sat unused in storage, racking up R325-million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure – and no one has been held accountable.

News24 reported in 2024 that DMRE Director-General Jacob Mbele said that the total cost of the programme by September of that year was over R1-billion, or about R11,500 per unit. The bulk, or 65%, of the cost is related to manufacturing and the second-biggest cost driver was storage.

On Friday, Kekana said that the cost per unit had “skyrocketed” to about R25,000 per unit, “which we are not proud of”.

Read more: Solar takes a load off but feed-in options are lagging behind the curve

How did this happen?

The Solar Water Heater Rebate Programme was first introduced in 2008 under Eskom, before the government officially relaunched it as the National Solar Water Heater Programme in April 2010 under former president Jacob Zuma. The programme was meant to be a flagship renewable energy initiative, but its execution faltered.

Kekana, in his update to Parliament, outlined how procurement and logistical failures led to massive financial losses.

“The actual objective of the department was to issue a tender for the manufacturing, the supply and delivery, and, most importantly, warehousing or storage of the units, with the intention to install the units at designated municipalities as fast as possible.

“However, the geysers were manufactured but not installed as initially anticipated, and they were later housed within the supplier’s premises over and above the three-month stipulated period,” he said.

What was meant to be a temporary storage solution turned into a six-year crisis, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of rands without delivering the intended benefits to households.

No further action taken against officials

Kekana’s presentation confirmed that, despite clear mismanagement, no disciplinary action had been taken against the officials responsible.

A forensic investigation led by KPMG flagged 11 officials for alleged wrongdoing, six of whom are still employed by the department. But instead of facing consequences, they remain in their positions.

“Just to give a high level of how many officials were involved, as we speak, we have six officials that are currently in the employ of the department that were part of the bid adjudication committee, as well as the project manager,” he said.

“It was later recommended that there should not be further actions taken against the officials due to the reasons that were presented to the accounting officer for his consideration.”

Three additional officials flagged in the investigation have since moved to other government departments, while two others are no longer in public service. Kekana explained that because some officials had left, the department could not take action against them.

“We also had officials that have completely left state employment and, due to that, we could not pursue any further actions against them.”

MPs outraged by plan’s reboot

The timing of this revelation, delivered near the end of the presentation, alongside an announcement of National Solar Water Heater Programme 2.0 set to begin in the 2027/28 financial year, ignited outrage among MPs.

First to go was the EFF MP Nazier Paulsen.

“I’m afraid, Mr Kekana, you came here to just spin a tale.

“We lost millions of rands, hundreds of millions of rands, over R300-million on storage alone. I’m not talking about the wasteful expenditure in procuring solar water heaters without a proper plan for rollout.

“Now, I think to tell us here that, after all these years, nobody’s responsible, everyone’s story was accepted; it’s unacceptable.”

He continued, “This matter should not be allowed to just go and disappear silently. There’s a huge cover-up here … This is definitely an inside job. It’s unacceptable that Mr Kekana can come here and tell us that nobody’s responsible.

“You can’t steal money, resign and then you get away, and then you get left alone. We must hunt them down.”

He said that he has asked the department since the 6th administration that they provide him with a list of where the heaters are being installed, but they had not yet responded to his request.

“I don’t think they’re being installed. I think we are being lied to once again. I don’t trust anything coming from this department,” Paulsen said emphatically.

He said they would go speak to the beneficiaries themselves.

“If Mr Kekana’s job here today was to come and close the story, it’s not closed.”

Read more: ‘I can’t afford solar power … I, among many South Africans, would like to be heard’

DA MP Kevin Mileham echoed broadly similar sentiments. He clarified that while the project had its genesis under Eskom, it was moved into the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy in later years and “that has been where the challenge has arisen”.

“I find it utterly appalling that not a single person has been held accountable for this mess. Hundreds of millions of rands over budget and you’ve washed your hands.

“We’ve ended up in a situation where we have got a programme that was not rolled out on time; it was not implemented properly and has cost the taxpayers of South Africa hundreds of millions of rands more than it should have,” said Mileham.

“Somebody needs to be held accountable,” he declared.

ACDP MP Wayne Thring asked about what sort of risk management plan the department would have as they prepare for National Solar Water Heater Programme 2.0 “because, clearly, one was absent”.

“And I agree with my previous two colleagues; it is unacceptable that with such huge amounts running into the hundreds of millions of rand that we are told ‘actually no one is responsible’.

“No one is accountable. No one is responsible,” he said.

“Essentially, it’s saying that we have a department where due process is not followed, supply chain management processes are not followed and, from a municipal view, municipal finance processes are not followed. Procurement processes are not followed. But nobody is accountable.

“I think that’s unacceptable,” said Thring.

ANC MP Vusi Nkosi said of the project: “It is heartbreaking because we cannot just lose R300-million that was supposed to assist so many families, and now it’s gone and nobody is held accountable. It is heartbreaking and it’s not correct at all.”

Confidence in corruption

MK MP Adil Nchabeleng said: “The project was intended to benefit low-indigent households, which means people with no means.

“So, I think this is something that we shouldn’t be taking lying down and really being almost nonchalant about it. Our people are suffering.”

This point is best illustrated when considering the portion of household expenditure the process of heating water for domestic use consumes.

Daily Maverick previously reported that the household geyser can take up about 12% of the grid’s operational capacity, and can account for up to 40% of a household’s electricity bill.

Nchabeleng on Friday acknowledged that the department, as currently composed, is “fairly new”, and that “you have inherited a backlog of historical issues” and requested a detailed report.

“Because this is a major story. This is a major issue of what has happened in the department in regard to a solar geyser project. If that project was implemented successfully, almost half of South Africa’s indigent households would have benefited properly and accordingly.

“But when we see the kind of report that you are receiving, and the fact that this is something that is intended to be swept under the carpet and under the rug, and issues must never be raised up, that this must be a closed-up project and then packed up … is not satisfactory to us.

“We feel that we need to dive deeper. This is a major level of covered-up corruption … We need a drill-down of it. We need to get to the bottom of what truly happened,” said Nchabeleng.

“You know, I feel that you’re taking this matter very lightly, especially the presenter,” he added.

His fellow MK member, Moses Sipho Mbatha, said: “We should demand an urgent oversight to go and see these places, probably as urgent as possible.”

He said the project, over the years, has been milked.

“There’s been ways of milking this project. If the SIU has to be brought, they must be brought now, because there is more money being milked in this project. I have never been so confident of proposing a shutdown of a project.

“We are being told a tale. This is a fairy tale story that the department seems to be happily able to present to us. There is such confidence in this corruption,” Mbatha stressed.

The Chairperson of the Committee, the ANC’s Nonkosi Queenie Mvana, threw her weight behind the members’ observations.

“I’m not going to repeat all what has been said by Honourable Members, but I am damn frustrated about this,” she said sternly.

“I agree with the Honourable Members who are saying ‘this needs an oversight, physical visit to these projects and it is urgent’.”

‘Clean slate’

Kekana, responding to comments and questions, said: “As a team, we also acknowledge the fact that I must say, to put it here, this project is a total failure.

“Yes, the issue about people being brought to book, that is indeed our intention.”

Careful to not sidestep responsibility for the status of the project, he said the department wanted “an opportunity to start on a clean slate”.

In the current financial year, the DMRE has not spent any money on storage and has said that “the only money we’ll be spending is to close off the project by the end of April”, said Kekana.

Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy Samantha Graham-Maré, herself once on the opposite side of the benches as an MP, concurred with the MPs.

“I completely share the sentiment of this entire portfolio committee.

“This is not a project we will allow to disappear and it will not be swept under the carpet. We have submitted a letter requesting access to the forensic report, which we have not been given access to,” said the deputy minister, adding that the submissions given by the charged people would also be sought.

Graham-Maré gave her undertaking to do site visits and “see where these have been installed, and try to get an understanding of why they’ve worked, where they’ve worked and why they haven’t, where they haven’t, and make sure that the information we are receiving is accurate and that where we’ve been told that these have been installed”.

“I’m not prepared for us to do a new programme where we haven’t actually completely interrogated this programme,” said the deputy minister.

“There is no clean slate if we still have this thing hanging over us,” she said. DM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

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Business Maverick

How did this happen?

No further action taken against officials

MPs outraged by plan’s reboot

Confidence in corruption

‘Clean slate’